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Hey, Bob!” cried Jack joyously, as the airship hovered 
overhead. — Frontispiece 


[See Page 


rOUNG CAPTAINS OF INDUSTRT 


Jack Collerton’s Engine 


By 

Hollis Godfrey 

Author of “ The Man Who Ended War,” 
“ For the Norton Name,” etc. 


Illustrated 
By H. Burgess 


Boston 

Little, Brown, and Company 


Copyright, 1909, 1910, 

By Little, Brown, and Company. 


All rights reserved 


Published, September, 1910 


THE UNIVERSITY PRESS, CAMBRIDGE, U. S. A. 


©CI.A2731'-2 


ALEXANDER HOLLIS GODFREY 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER ONE 

Jack Collerton, bearing the Collerton Engine, 
sails on the Northumbria after an encounter 
in which a yellow-green coat plays a part . 

CHAPTER TWO 

An Eton boy appears, and a pleasant voyage is 
marred by a thief who comes out of the dark, 

CHAPTER THREE 

The tender at Queenstown carries some unex- 
pected luggage, and an Act of Parliament 
sets up an obstacle 

CHAPTER FOUR 

Mr. Benjamin Twomell of the Inner Temple 
shows how to get around an Act of Parlia- 
ment, but the Collerton Engine has a mishap 
in a fog 


Page 


27 


48 


74 


CONTENTS 


viii 


CHAPTER FIVE 

A regatta day at Henley shows a disabled 
airship, whose occupant sends a message 
through the telephone 

CHAPTER SIX 

A phonograph on the Dover-Calais Express is 
shown to be a valuable detective agency when 
properly adjusted 

CHAPTER SEVEN 

Bob Burne makes his first appearance as an 
aviator at Lucerne and gains some valuable 
information while so doing 

CHAPTER EIGHT 

Jack Collerton temporarily becomes J. Cope, 
and a trip through the Grimsel Pass has an 
unpleasant ending 

CHAPTER NINE 

The work of a stupid jailer is righted by the 
act of a wise magistrate, and everybody in 
the streets of Brigue looks up into the 
sky 


Page 

103 


129 


155 


i8i 


205 


CONTENTS 


IX 


CHAPTER TEN 

Despite a howling gale and a disabled motor, 
the Collerton Engine comes to land in a 
potato patch near Chillon, and Jack Collerton 
finds that for some purposes legs are still 
better than dirigibles 

CHAPTER ELEVEN 

The aeronautical department of the British 
War Office holds a successful competition 
on Lake Leman, and Jack Collerton hands 
a piece of paper to his father .... 258 


Page 


232 



ILLUSTRATIONS 


** Hey, Bob ! ” cried Jack joyously, as the airship hovered 

overhead Frontispiece 

Page 

'‘No, you don*t sneak off to Europe without payin’ me 

for the horse ye killed! ” 22 ■ 

“May I present my berth-mate, Mr. Jack Collerton? ” 38 

He landed, sprawling, on a heap of bedding in the bow 61 
Bob hastened forward to meet a man who came scram- 


bling down 120 

With a start of amazement. Bob recognized two of the 

men 176 

“I arrest you in the name of the Republic”. . . . 204 

He looked inquiringly at Sir Gregory Hawes .... 284 






JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 


CHAPTER ONE 

JACK COLLERTON SAILS ON THE Northumbfia 

HaLF-PAST ten,’’ said Jack Collerton 
to himself, as he looked up at the clock 
tower of the big station. “Half-past ten. 
Oceans of time. Father said he’d be there 
by eleven sure, and the boat doesn’t^ sail 
till twelve.” ^ 

As his cab rattled on over rough cobble- 
stones and slippery car tracks. Jack took 
in the New York water front with eager 
eyes. In and out of the low brown build- 
ings of the railroad stations on his right 
poured rivers of men, women, and children. 
The departing crowd was soon lost in the 
passages which led to the ferry. The city- 


2 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

bound masses dashed in sections across the 
road to avoid the onslaught of heavy drays, 
swung perilously near archaic horse-cars 
and accompanying cable-cars, or hovered 
on the brink of an increasing stream of 
cabs, most of which were proceeding in the 
same direction as himself. 

The other side of the street was a queer 
mixture. Battered, unpainted, wooden 
structures stood next to modern brick 
warehouses, through the open doors of 
which the boy could see produce and manu- 
factured goods; and here and there, mingled 
in without rhyme or reason, rose tenement 
houses of the poorer type. Over the whole 
poured the hot, bright sun, which now, 
increasing in its fervor, showed the whole 
busy, dirty, whirling city with intense 
clearness. 

‘‘So this is New York,” thought Jack 
aloud. “This is the metropolis of the 
United States. Whew! How everything 
hustles!” 


SAILS ON THE NORTHUMBRIA 3 

As Jack spoke, he saw the trunk-laden 
cab ahead turn sharply to the right, and 
glanced up quickly to see the sign ‘‘Cunard 
Steamship Company” just above him. An 
instant more and the cab was swallowed 
up in semi-darkness. A sudden cloud closed 
in over his eyes, accustomed to the glare 
of the street, but he could hear the sound 
of horses’ feet echoing on wood, and he 
felt the cab slow up and stop. There was 
more light now, and his eyes, once more 
restored to usefulness, took in with eager 
interest the various scenes about this portal 
to the Old World. In a second Jack had 
turned the handle of the door and was out 
upon the dock. 

“Hand those cases down carefully, please,” 
he called to the cabman, who was busily 
engaged in unstrapping two good-sized 
leather cases, each secured with three locks, 
one placed on the front, and one on each 
side. 

As he placed one case on the floor of the 


4 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

dock, it gave forth a slight clang almost 
like the sound of a bell. 

‘‘What’s thot?” exclaimed the cabman, 
starting. “I thought thot was baggage. 
Are ye taking bells across?” 

“Oh, no!” said Jack smiling. “My father 
brought our baggage down this morning. 
That’s a machine we are taking abroad. 
In one place it does n’t quite fit its case, 
and when it strikes it sounds like that.” 

“Oh! Thot’s the way of it, is it?” 
said the cabman, eying the cases with 
interest. “I niver thought of thot. Thank 
you, sir!” he went on, as Jack handed over 
his fare and tip. “The top of the mornin’ 
to you and a good trip. I wisht I was 
goin’ meself.” He jumped on to the box 
and was off in a moment. 

Shaking his head at a porter who had 
started to pick up the cases. Jack care- 
fully placed his luggage in front of him 
and turned to survey the scene. The full 
bustle of departure was on. The great 


SAILS ON THE NORTHUMBRIA 5 

black hull and white superstructure of the 
Northumhriay pierced with many open port- 
holes, showed through the broad doors 
directly before him, and, stretching down 
as far as Jack could see, door after door 
was blocked by the long side of the big 
steamship. Only through the great open- 
ing far down at the very end of the pier 
at his right, could Jack catch a glimpse of 
passing harbor vessels and the Jersey shore. 

“What a monster!” said Jack to himself. 

A slap on his shoulder roused the lad 
from his revery. He whirled on his heel 
to find an outstretched hand. 

“George Powers!” he exclaimed, as he 
caught the hand and wrung it vigorously. 
“Where on earth did you spring from?” 

“Right from little old New York, of 
course,” answered George, with a grin. 
“Where else would you expect? I’ve 
been piling in letters to you with a New 
York postmark for two years, to which 
you reply about once in six months. And 


6 JACK COLLERTON^S ENGINE 

now you come right here and never let me 
know anything about it! When did you 
arrive? What’s up, anyway? Are you 
going across?” 

“Got in at six. Sail at twelve,” said 
Jack briefly and comprehensively. “Are 
you going, too?” he asked, with a sudden 
hope. 

“Going too,” growled George pessimis- 
tically. “I’ve saved only two hundred and 
fifty thousand in the last two years out of 
my eight dollars per in father’s wool busi- 
ness, so I don’t think I can afford to travel 
this season. I ’ve got to get a new pair of 
tennis shoes this week, anyway, and I feel 
in my bones somehow that they ’ll queer it.” 

“Hard luck!” interrupted Jack, with a 
laugh. “I ’ve always heard that New York- 
ers were too busy making money to stop 
for any cause whatsoever. How I wish 
you were going, though!” 

“Oh, never mind my woes,” said George. 
“I’m just down here with a note from 


SAILS ON THE NORTHUMBRIA 7 

father to one of his customers. But why 
don’t you answer my question? How do 
you happen to be going?” 

“Well, it’s quite a story,” answered Jack 
slowly. “ But I ’ll start in on it anyway, 
and finish as much of it as I can before 
father comes. I ’m expecting him every 
minute.” 

“Go it, old boy,” said George, leaning 
up against a pillar. “I haven’t got to get 
back to the office till after lunch, and I ’ll 
stay by you till eleven-thirty. Then I ’ll 
have to skip.” 

“To begin with, then,” remarked Jack, 
“you remember father’s engine?” 

George nodded affirmatively. “You mean 
the one he was always working on even- 
ings, in the little shop back of your house?” 

“The same,” said Jack. “Well, he ’s made 
it a go and done a big thing. That’s the 
engine there.” He pointed to the cases. 
“It’s knocked down now, but it can be put 
together in two hours, and it only weighs. 


8 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

cases and all, eighty-nine pounds. It’s the 
most wonderful engine for use in airships 
that was ever invented!” As Jack spoke 
the words he felt a sudden qualm, and 
looked around swiftly. ‘‘I don’t know 
but that I’m a fool to talk about the 
engine here, though, in a public place. I 
suppose I ought to keep it dark.” 

George laughed. “Well, you are from 
the depths of the backwoods all right. 
Why, Jack, do you suppose anybody here 
in New York cares anything about your 
engine.^ You’re in a city, boy, a real city, 
not in a suburban town. Fire ahead. Don’t 
be over suspicious. Come over here by 
these boxes if you ’re anxious. There ’s no- 
body there.” The two moved slowly a 
little space away. 

Jack had reddened a bit at George’s 
banter. “I suppose you’re right,” he said. 
“I’m careless enough generally, anyway. 
It was only a sudden feeling. You see,” 
he went on, “the whole thing has come to 


SAILS ON THE NORTHUMBRIA 9 

a focus very suddenly at the end, though it 
really began about a year and a half ago, 
when father and I got in with one of the 
Aero Club men, — Gardner, his name is.” 

George broke in. ‘‘Gardner? Oh, I 
know who he is. He ’s one of the biggest 
men in the game.” 

Jack nodded. “That’s the man. He 
had an airship which got into all sorts of 
trouble because its engine was n’t powerful 
enough. Well, Gardner happened to hear 
of father’s engine, and came up to see 
him. We had a bigger model then, and we 
tried it on a big airship. It worked fine, 
and say, George,” Jack interrupted him- 
self, “any old time you want to blow some 
of your extra wealth for an airship, just 
let me know. I ’m an experienced pilot 
now. I could qualify easily for the French 
Aero Club or any of the others. I ’ve made 
forty ascensions, six of them at night. 
How’s that for high,” and he raised his 
hand with a lofty gesture. 


10 JACK COLLERTON^S ENGINE 

“O. K.,” replied George. ‘‘But don’t 
take my mind off with trivialities like 
your balloon ascensions. Go on about the 
engine.” 

“All right,” said Jack. “I don’t mind 
humoring you. After father found that 
the big engine worked all right, he went to 
work to make a smaller one, and finally, 
just four days ago, he finished this. Now 
the Aeronautic Department of the British 
War Office announced a prize of twenty- 
five thousand pounds about a year ago 
for the best engine for use in an airship 
designed for a single operator. Gardner’s 
been urging us to go in for it, and when the 
work was really done, father suddenly de- 
cided to go over and try for that. We’ve 
none too much money, and if father can 
win that prize it’ll be a great thing for us.” 

“But what I don’t see,” broke in George, 
“is why you don’t get a patent on the 
engine first.” 

“We’ve seen to that. We have applied, 


SAILS ON THE NORTHUMBRIA ii 


and the application is registered, but you 
don’t realize what it means to get a patent 
in this free country of ours. I tell you it ’s 
a lengthy job. One thing’s sure, anyway. 
Our own government won’t touch father’s 
engine. Gardner made every effort to get 
them to do so, and only a week ago they 
finally and definitely refused. They have 
an aeroplane, you see, that they think is 
good enough. So that ’s why we go abroad.” 

“What’s your rush?” inquired George. 
“Why this tearing hustle, when your father 
got the thing done only four days ago?” 

“Why, it’s this way,” answered Jack. 
“The time limit of the competition is up 
in two weeks, and we couldn’t reasonably 
expect to make it if we took any boat after 
this. We were lucky to get berths. We 
have two berths out of a three-berth room, 
but I don’t believe that will make any very 
great difference.” 

“Any idea what your chances are?” went 
on George, interestedly. 


12 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

“Pretty good,” replied Jack. “There’s 
one company we ’re sure to run up against, 
— The Mannheim Company. They’re an 
English concern with an American office. 
They sold the War Office one of the engines 
they’re using now. They haven’t a very 
good name in the business. There ’ve been 
some queer stories afloat about them.” 

“What sort of stories do you mean, 
Jack?” 

“Oh, yarns of various kinds. Tricky 
deeds, most of them. There was a man 
named Hale, ' out in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, 
for example. He got up a corking good 
engine for an aeroplane and came East to 
get capital. Well, the Mannheims got hold 
of him and absorbed him so completely he 
lost all the rights to his engine, and hardly 
had carfare to go home. They’re sharp, 
all right.” 

“Much of a firm?” said George. 

“Pretty big,” answered Jack. “There’s 
not much doing in the aeronautic way world 


SAILS ON THE NORTHUMBRIA 13 

over that they ’re not into, and that they ’re 
not trying to get hold of. That’s one 
reason why we’ve kept father’s invention 
so dark. They really are the limit.” 

‘‘Well, I bank on you, anyway,” said 
George, turning the subject. “Going far- 
ther than London?” 

“I don’t know yet,” answered Jack. 
“We can tell better when we get over on 
the other side. We ’ve had only the general 
notice of the competition, but we ’re required 
to submit a working engine, not a working 
model. That’s why we have these with 
us.” Jack patted the cases affectionately. 
“But I don’t see what is keeping father. 
Here it is half-past eleven, and he’s not in 
sight.” 

“Half-past eleven!” exclaimed George. 
“I must run. Wish I could see your father. 
Anyway, I hope you ’ll have the time of 
your life and come home with the twenty- 
five thousand pounds, a laurel wreath tipped 
sidewise on your brow, and the band, on 


14 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

the upper deck, pounding out, ‘See, the 
Conquering Hero Comes. Sound the Trum- 
pets, Beat the Drums.’ Good luck, old 
chap, and hon voyage 

George turned away, and Jack bent his 
attention once more to the coming crowd. 
Mr. Collerton was nowhere in sight. The 
lad looked at his watch again. It was 
twenty-five minutes of twelve. 

“Time enough yet,” he said to himself. 
“Father always had a habit of getting 
there at the last minute, but I wish he’d 
planned to meet me on the steamer instead 
of on the dock, if he’s going to be late. I 
think I ’ll move up nearer the gang plank.” 

He had just started to pick up the cases 
and move forward, when he heard a sharp 
whisper behind him. 

“Jack! Don’t turn your head! Don’t 
speak, but listen!” 

It was George Powers’ voice. In the 
swift, involuntary turn which Jack had 
made as he heard his name, he had seen 


SAILS ON THE NORTHUMBRIA 15 

the pile of bo:xes directly behind him, piled 
higher than a man’s head. In the instant 
that he stood there, his thoughts raced 
swiftly. He knew that George, full of 
fun as he was, had a cool, quick head, and 
was not given to dramatic action. Hardly 
moving his lips. Jack whistled the three 
low notes which in their old boys’ club of 
early High School days had meant atten- 
tion. The response from behind the boxes 
was immediate. 

‘‘Jack, I was a fool to tell you to talk 
as freely as you did. I think there’s some 
funny business going on here. Look casu- 
ally down to the third door on your left.” 

Jack turned on his heel as if to shift his 
position. 

The words went on: “Now look at the 
man talking to that scowling thug of a 
cabman in the faded green coat; the man 
is dark, has a pointed, up-turned mous- 
tache, and is dressed in gray. If you’ve 
got them, raise your elbow an inch or two. 


1 6 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

Look away, when you see them. I can 
watch them through the handle-holes of 
these boxes.” 

Jack’s elbow rose.’ 

George continued rapidly: “When I left 
you, I came square against the dark man 
behind these boxes. I ’m morally sure he 
was listening to every word we said. He 
stared at me and I stared back at him. 
I thought at first I ’d turn and come straight 
to you, and then I thought I ’d watch him; 
so I went back out of sight behind a cab. 
As soon as I disappeared, he went over and 
began looking at the cabmen. He didn’t 
say anything to any of them till he saw 
that tough. Then he began to talk to him. 
I came up behind these boxes, so he should n’t 
know that I had warned you.” 

George broke off sharply. “The dark 
man is giving the cabman money now. 
He has his eye fixed on you, and I ’m sure 
he ’s pointing you out to him. Hang on to 
your cases hard! You can’t tell what’s up, 


SAILS ON THE NORTHUMBRIA 17 

but in any city of this size there’s plenty 
of men who ’ll do anything for money. Now 
they ’ve parted. Keep your eye on the cab- 
man! The trouble is there, if any is coming. 
I ’m going to see if I can find a cop I know, 
who’s on duty here. He was on the beat 
by our place till a month ago, and he’s a 
good friend of mine. I ’d move down toward 
the gang plank with the cases, if I were you. 
You’ll be all right as soon as your father 
gets here, and I ’ll be back in a few minutes. 
So long!” 

Jack stood carelessly for a brief time, with 
his eye on the scowling cabman. Then he 
picked up his cases and started towards the 
gang plank. As he did so, he saw the cab- 
man turn and walk out towards the street. 

“False alarm,” he said to himself. “George 
meant well, but I don’t believe anything 
melodramatic is likely to happen. But I do 
wish father would come! Here it is twenty 
minutes of twelve, and he ’s not in sight.” 

By this time a perfect avalanche of 


1 8 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

trunks, of bags and boxes, was pouring up 
two gangways on the left, and a steady 
procession of first cabin passengers was 
entering just ahead. Far down towards the 
bow, a stream of steerage passengers, faintly 
discernible behind the shifting masses be- 
tween, showed brighter hues in the yellow tur- 
bans, gay hats, and kerchiefs of our newer 
citizens returning from their new home to 
the old. Aft of the baggage chute the 
second-class passengers were entering. 

Jack had taken his station just at the 
end of the rope barrier which enclosed 
the space where two streams passed, the 
descending flood of visitors coming ashore 
on one side of the double aisled gangway, 
and the ascending torrent flowing in on 
the other. Never had Jack been in a 
busier place. 

Near him, a gray-bearded officer in a 
gold-braided, natty white uniform was laugh- 
ing and chatting with two girls just on the 
point of embarkation. Florists’ boys were 


SAILS ON THE NORTHUMBRIA ig 

rushing up with long pasteboard boxes of 
flowers. Late comers were crowding in, 
laden down with hand luggage. Passengers 
on the deck above were taking snapshots 
of people on the dock. People on the dock 
were taking snapshots of passengers on 
deck. Flowers were falling through the 
air. Boxes of candy were being thrown 
back and forth, sometimes reaching their 
destination, and sometimes falling to de- 
struction in the black water beneath. 
Merry friends were parting with laughter. 
Sad families were parting with tears. 

As he scanned the crowded decks, two 
faces just above the rail caught Jack’s 
eyes. Evidently the two were mother and 
son; and motherless Jack felt a fulness 
in his throat as he watched the beautiful 
face of the woman. She stood beside an 
English boy of about his own age. Both 
had that northern fairness that has per- 
sisted in the south of Britain since Saxon 
Harold’s day. 


20 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

‘‘I hope I shall get to know that chap,” 
said Jack to himself. 

Just then an ominous cry broke on his 
ears: ‘‘All ashore that are going ashore! 
All aboard that are coming aboard!” 

Jack turned, in an agony of anxiety, to 
look once more for his father. He tried 
to think over his instructions still more 
carefully. Yes, he was doing exactly as 
he had been told. His father had directed 
him to wait on one side of the dock till 
half-past eleven, and then go up to the 
gang plank. Jack could hardly have helped 
seeing him if he had entered, yet his eyes 
never ceased their search. 

Suddenly his roving eyes met an object 
that fixed their gaze. Almost beside him 
he saw a faded green coat. The peculiar 
yellow of that sleeve could not be mistaken, 
even though the face was turned away. 
Even at a distance Jack had already noted 
the peculiar garb of the cabman. All his 
worry over George’s news came back re- 


SAILS ON THE NORTHUMBRIA 21 


doubled. If somebody were going to make 
trouble for him now, could they have hurt 
his father first and kept him back? Never 
in his life had Jack been at such a crisis. 
With all his forces he struggled to keep 
his head cool for the emergency, as he 
clenched his hands around the handles 
to the cases. 

Jack glanced at the open watch of a man 
beside him. It was five minutes of twelve 
now. He could hear gongs sounding loudly. 
The gang plank was nearly deserted, except 
by sailors. A few last shore goers were 
hastening down, though two or three men, 
apparently company officials, were still on 
deck, talking to an officer beside the open- 
ing. Now they said leisurely good-bys and 
started ashore. Four men ranged them- 
selves ready to cast loose the lashings and 
run the gang plank back. 

Jack’s wandering eyes had turned to the 
gray-bearded officer deserted by his girl 
friends, and he noted the erect, white-clad 


22 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

form bend as the officer listened to the 
words of a breathless, perspiring man, who 
had evidently had a hard time forcing his 
way through the crowds. In an instant 
the officer nodded, and Jack instinctively 
watched him as he raised his head. 

‘‘Mr. John Collerton!” he called, and 
after a moment more, “Mr. John Collerton!” 

The first moment of amaze over. Jack 
leaped forward with his cases and stopped 
beside him. The breathless man thrust 
a packet into Jack’s hands, and looking 
down he saw across the top, in his father’s 
handwriting: “Go. P. C.” 

He knew the initials perfectly. They 
were his father’s commands, and he did 
not hesitate to obey. Up the gang plank 
he started with a rush, only to be jerked 
suddenly back by a rough grasp on his arm. 
Clinging to the cases, he turned to confront 
the cabman. 

“No, you don’t sneak off to Europe with- 
out payin’ me for the horse ye killed!” 



‘‘No, you don’t sneak off to Europe without payin’ me for the horse 
ye killed ! ” 


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SAILS ON THE NORTHUMBRIA 23 

the man shouted hoarsely. ‘‘Here, orficer, 
orficer, take this man in charge! He killed 
a two-hundred-dollar horse for me.” 

Jack’s wits worked quickly. “This is 
ridiculous!” he cried. “What can I do?” 
He turned to the officer, who stood watch 
in hand. Jack could see the minute- 
hand just pointing to the twelve on the 
dial. 

“The ship can’t wait, my boy,” he said 
kindly. “If you’ve got two hundred dollars 
that you can leave, I ’ll settle things, and 
if it is n’t right, I ’ll send it along to you by 
cable. But we can’t wait.” And he sig- 
nalled to the four men, who bent phleg- 
matically to undo the lashings. The crowd 
was going wild. Most of them were shouting 
to the boy to break away, but the cabman 
had so firm a hold on one of the cases now 
that he knew he could not break it. Flight 
with eighty-nine pounds of luggage would 
be no easy thing. 

The cabman was still shouting “Police, 


24 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

Police!” when a blue cap appeared, forcing 
its way through the crowd. Jack could see 
that the last lashing was loose, as the officer 
came in sight and the cabman began volubly 
to explain. But the officer, unheeding the 
cabman’s words, turned to some one behind 
him, and Jack, with a thrill of triumph, 
saw George’s honest face. 

‘‘This is your friend?” said the officer 
briefly, to George. 

“Yes,” answered George. 

“Leggo that case! I’ll take you to the 
station to explain this!” said the officer 
sharply to the cabman, as he took the 
astonished man’s arm with a practised grip. 
He turned to Jack. 

“Go ahead, sir. That’s all right.” 

With a tremendous dash. Jack sped up 
the gangway, amid the laughing cheers of 
the passengers and of the waiting throng, 
and stumbled aboard. 

The officer raised his hand, the gang 
plank shot back, the men down on the 


SAILS ON THE NORTHUMBRIA 25 

dock began swiftly to throw off the big 
mooring ropes, and Jack felt the throb of 
the screw. As he sank on his cases by 
the rail, he saw George executing a few 
steps of a war-dance as he waved good-by, 
and saw his friend start away in pursuit of 
a blue coat, accompanied by a faded green 
one, ; whose owner seemed engaged in an 
excited monologue. With a sense of relief. 
Jack saw the dark man following, some 
distance in the rear. The grim silence of 
the officer of the law boded little good 
to the man who had tried to keep Jack 
behind. 

Now the puffing tugs hauled and pushed 
the great leviathan from her berth out to 
midstream. The tossing sea of faces which 
had emerged from the big door that led 
to the seaward end of the pier became a 
confused mass of indistinct black and white. 
The crowding harbor side, the green of the 
Battery, and the great turrets of the mighty 
city faded one by one, and still Jack sat on 


26 JACK COLLERTON^S ENGINE 

his cases, gazing backward with an anxious 
heart. What had become of his father.^ 
What was the meaning of the strange inci- 
dent at the dock? How could he meet the 
necessities of the competition? 


CHAPTER TWO 


AN ETON BOY APPEARS AND A PLEASANT 
VOYAGE IS MARRED 

As the Northumbria freed herself from 
the narrow barriers of the rivers and swept 
majestically down the bay, Jack Coller- 
ton roused himself with a heavy sigh, and 
started with the precious cases towards his 
stateroom. Meeting a white-jacketed stew- 
ard, he surrendered his burden, and followed 
on down the wide staircase, through the 
great dining saloon, where the long tables 
were well filled with passengers at their 
first sea luncheon, and across a broad aisle. 
Just beyond the dining-room, the stev^rd 
turned sharply to the right, entered a fair- 
sized cabin, and dropped the cases. 

‘‘Here you are, sir,” he said. “There’s 
another young gentleman, a Mr. Burne, 


28 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

about your age, with you. And the other 
Mr. Collerton is your brother or father?” 

“My father,” answered Jack slowly, as a 
wave of desolation swept over him. “We 
were to have crossed together, but he’s not 
coming.” 

“Really, sir,” said the steward respect- 
fully. He changed the subject. “There’s 
my bell, sir, if you want anything. Lunch- 
eon will be served for an hour more, sir, 
and if you have any letters to send back 
by the pilot, it would be well to get them 
in the mail-bag soon after luncheon.” He 
bowed and closed the latticed door, leav- 
ing the lad alone. 

Jack threw himself on the long red couch 
beneath the port-hole, and gave himself over 
to a few moments of careful thought. In 
the first shock of his departure, the packet 
which the breathless messenger had handed 
to him had been forgotten, but now it 
came to his mind, and he eagerly drew it 
forth. 


AN ETON BOY APPEARS 29 

As Jack read the four letters, “Go. 
P. C.”, written on the fat brown envelope 
which cased the bundle, he wondered again 
what intensity of need could have caused 
his father to send him off with no more 
explanation. He broke the seal and poured 
forth the contents of the envelope on the 
couch beside him. An oblong black leather 
case, two coin purses and two smaller 
envelopes appeared. 

The black leather case Jack recognized 
at once, as he had the coin purses. Open- 
ing it, he drew forth from one of the pockets 
the letter of credit, a stiff, crinkly paper 
which set forth that two hundred pounds 
stood to the joint credit of his father and 
of himself, an amount which could be 
drawn by either. He opened the other 
pocket of the case, and drew forth a paper 
he had not seen before. This, too, was offi- 
cial. It was a power of attorney made out 
to him, giving him authority to sign docu- 
ments of any type in place of his father. 


30 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

It had been vised by the British consul at 
New York. 

“It almost seems as if father had feared 
that something was to happen to him, from 
all the precautions he took,’’ murmured 
Jack. “But, really, I suppose that’s hardly 
true. He was only guarding wisely against 
accident when he got these things ready.” 

A five-pound note, nestling beside the 
power of attorney, exhausted the possi- 
bilities of the black case, and Jack remem- 
bered his father’s rule never to be without 
money when travelling. “That ’s the reserve 
fund,” he said to himself. 

He turned to the envelopes, one of which 
held his own passport and his father’s. 
“We may need them for the competition, 
son,” his father had said, when they applied 
for them together. The other envelope 
held a hundred dollars in Express Company 
notes, with the equivalent values in British, 
German, and French money given on the 
sides. The coin purses were the only thing 


AN ETON BOY APPEARS 


31 


left now. They held five pounds in sover- 
eigns, half-sovereigns, half-crowns, shillings, 
and sixpences. 

‘‘IVe got some time yet before the pilot 
goes off,” said Jack, looking at his watch. 
“I ’ll arrange all these valuables first. Then 
I can write father more definitely.” He 
put his passports in his trunk, which was 
beneath the berth, locked the trunk, con- 
centrated all his money and credits in the 
black case, and put that into his pocket, 
pulled a piece of paper and a stamped 
envelope from his bag, and began to write. 


S.S. Northumbria, Saturday. 

Dear Father^ — I don’t know just where to 
send this letter, so I ’m going to send it home, 
hoping it will be forwarded to you from there. 
I got the parcel all right and found all our 
baggage in the stateroom, — the trunk and 
the three bags. The engine is all right. I 
have ^1,150, the passports, and the power of 
attorney. 

What in the world happened ? I hope I 


32 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

shall hear from you soon, and have this mystery 
cleared up. But in the meantime I shall go 
ahead and do my best. 

Lovingly, 

Jack. 

Jack had addressed his letter and was 
just sealing it, when the door opened, and 
there entered the same blond English lad 
whom he had seen leaning over the rail. 

‘‘Hello!’’ said the incomer cordially. “You 
to be my berth mate? Saw your set-to 
with the cabman. It was rippin’. Jolly 
glad you won out. My name ’s Burne, Bob 
Burne. Suppose you’re Collerton, either 
P. or J.” 

“I’m J.,” said Jack, with his first smile 
for some hours. “John Collerton. My 
father is Philip Collerton. I was going 
over with him, but something has happened, 
— I don’t know what, — and he ’s left be- 
hind.” 

“What rotten luck!” exclaimed Bob Burne 
sympathetically. “I’m jolly glad we’re to 


AN ETON BOY APPEARS 33 

be berth mates, though. There ’s a vacant 
seat next to us at table, too. Don’t you 
want to take it? My mother’d like to 
have you. She jolly well liked your looks, 
I don’t mind tellin’ you.” 

It was Jack’s first experience of the clipped 
language of the English public-school boy, 
but under the somewhat brusque manner 
shone forth such a hearty cordiality that 
he was won at once. 

‘‘I’d be very glad to take the seat,” he 
exclaimed. “I’m downright green about 
things, you see. It’s my first crossing.” 

“Only my second,” said Bob Burne cheer- 
ily. “But you get on to a lot of things 
first time over. We came over, mother 
and I, three months ago. If you ’re to post 
that letter, why not do it now, then get 
your seat and lunch.” 

Jack rose, with an anxious look at his 
cases. For a moment he was in a dilemma. 
Then as he looked at Bob’s honest face, 
he felt that he could do nothing better than 


3 


34 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

ask him for advice. He stepped to the 
door and closed it. 

“To tell the truth,” he said in a low 
voice, “I’m afraid to leave those cases. 
There ’s an engine in there that I ’m taking 
abroad, which must not get lost. Since 
my trouble on the dock, I feel a little uneasy.” 

Bob Burne looked at the cases gravely. 
“Two things I suppose you can do,” he 
said slowly. “One’s to take ’em and give 
’em to the purser to keep for you. Other ’s, 
let ’em stay here. Either case, wouldn’t 
worry about ’em. Too big, I fancy, to 
give to purser. He would n’t have any 
safe place to put two such big cases as 
that. He wouldn’t put ’em in the specie 
vault. That’s sealed now till we get to 
the other side, and the things are too big 
to go in any safe. Matter of fact is that 
you ’re pretty safe to leave ’em here. They ’re 
to big to slip away easily. Too queer look- 
ing not to be recognized. Ship ’s different 
from on land. Stewards and stewardesses 


AN ETON BOY APPEARS 


35 

round all the time, night and day. People 
leave everything big round, regardless. Think 
I should take my chances.” 

Jack laughed. ‘‘I suppose that is right,” 
he said. “One can’t go round lugging 
baggage all over the ship, or stay in the 
cabin all the time, watching it. I ’ll leave 
them here.” 

“Wisest move,” said Bob laconically. 
“Come on.” 

The two boys found the mail-bag, posted 
Jack’s letter, and returned in search of 
the chief dining-room steward. The chair 
beside Bob’s seat was fortunately vacant, 
so Jack saw his name placed at that spot 
on the diagram, and then, suddenly realiz- 
ing a large and energetic appetite, sat 
down to a hearty lunch, which was inter- 
spersed with occasional laconic sallies from 
Bob. 

Jack was just ending, when his steward 
came towards him with an envelope. Jack 
read the printed words, “Marconi Wireless 


36 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

Company,” and the typewritten address 
beneath: 

John Collerton, Esq., 

S. S. Northumbria, 

With a sense of deep wonderment, he 
broke the seal and read: 

Leg injured by automobile. Rapid recovery 
expected. Go ahead bravely. 

Collerton. 

The mist rolled back from Jack’s path- 
way as he read. Trials might be ahead, 
troubles of various sorts, but the chief 
anxiety had departed. He knew his father’s 
fate. Jack turned to Bob with a beaming 
face. ‘‘I’ve heard from father. Hurt by 
a motor-car, but recovering.” 

Bob stretched out his hand with a hearty 
grip. “Great!” he said. “So glad for you. 
Know how rotten it would be if something 
happened to mother. I ’ve no father, you 
see.” 

“And I ’ve no mother,” said Jack. 


AN ETON BOY APPEARS 37 

‘‘Come on up now, meet my mother, 
and get your deck chair,” said Bob, after 
a moment’s silence. 

The two went up the stair through a 
corridor and out on to the deck, whose 
shadowing awnings made an aisle of shelter 
in a sea of golden light. Steadily and swiftly 
the great boat was ploughing her way out- 
ward. Ahead was the broad Atlantic. On 
the right, a comparatively short distance 
away, stretched a dune of sand, on which 
rose a lighthouse and a few huddled build- 
ings. 

“Sandy Hook,” cried Bob. “Now we ’re 
really off.” 

Jack gazed backward for some minutes 
at the low land rapidly sinking from sight. 
That was one of the last ties of the old. 
Now for the great things of the new. As 
he stood gazing. Bob, who had . left him, 
reappeared, accompanied by a blue-jacketed 
steward. 

. “Here’s the deck steward,” he said. 


38 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

“Better get your chair now. Here’s a 
place side of us.” The man took Jack’s 
name, wrote it on a tag, and fastened it to 
the chair. “Four shillings, thank you, sir,” 
he said, and Jack paid his first bill in Eng- 
lish money. 

As the two boys stood beside the chairs. 
Bob suddenly broke away. 

“There ’s mother,” he said, and in a 
moment more returned with the tall, grace- 
ful lady whom Jack had seen before. 

“My dear,” said Bob courteously, “may 
I present my berth mate, Mr. Jack Col- 
lerton?” 

“I am very glad to meet Mr. Collerton,” 
said Bob’s mother, with a smile that won 
Jack’s heart immediately. “I am glad that 
my son has so good a berth mate.” 

“Mrs. Burne,” said Jack, with a touch 
of the old-fashioned courtesy which was a 
part of the lad, “it is a privilege for me 
to meet you, and I am very glad your son 
and I came together.” 


/ 




May I present my berth-mate, Mr. Jack Collertori 


? 


y y 



Page jS 



AN ETON BOY APPEARS 


39 


‘‘By the way, Collerton,” said Bob, “I 
forgot to mention it, but mother ’s Lady 
Angela Burne. F ather was a birthday knight. 
Got his prefix for some bridges he built. 
So mother happens to be Lady Angela, 
while I ’m plain Bob Burne, now of Henley 
and late of Eton.” 

The voyage was well begun. Never were 
two boys more congenial than the two who 
were together. Never was pleasanter pas- 
sage. Over a summer sea the liner sped on 
through the swift flying hours. Each day 
showed a record passage, and each after- 
noon, as Jack looked at the chart on which 
the run to noon was marked off, he saw 
the distance to the Old World much dimin- 
ished, the line to the New World much 
greater. Shuffleboard in the morning, tramps 
around the deck in the afternoon, long, 
lazy hours in the deck chair, made the 
days pass in a calm security which did 
much to quiet Jack’s forebodings. 

Two nights and three days had gone 


40 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

since the time of sailing. The third night 
came still and warm. Jack and Bob spent 
the evening in the bow, looking forward 
over the broad, unchanging sea ahead, until 
a gradual cessation of their conversation 
showed the oncoming of a drowsiness which 
presently drove them cabinwards and to 
bed. 

That night Jack, in his upper berth, fell 
into a deep sleep almost the moment his 
head touched the pillow. It was perhaps 
two hours afterwards when he awoke with 
that sudden throbbing return to conscious- 
ness which comes with the sensation of 
falling through miles upon miles of space. 
As he lay there, he felt oppressed by a sudden 
increase in the temperature, half rose to cast 
off the blanket, and thought for a fleeting 
instant that he saw a gray form just below 
him. Without a word he threw back the 
bedclothes and jumped to the floor. 

To his surprise, there was no one there. 
Bob was sleeping peacefully in his lower 


AN ETON BOY APPEARS 


41 


berth. The trunks and bags filled all the 
space beneath berth and couch. The cases 
which held the engine stood in the corner 
beside the double wash-stand. The little 
closet could not hold anything larger than 
a dwarf. Jack turned to examine the chain 
which fastened the latticed door. That 
seemed all right. He stood there in a 
complete quandary. 

After a moment Jack turned to look at 
Bob by the dim light. Could he have 
been walking in his sleep ? No. He lay 
perfectly peaceful and well tucked in. Jack 
turned to the closet and opened the door. 
Nothing appeared but the clothes hanging 
on the forms. He even let down the wash- 
stands, but there was nothing there that 
was out of the normal. At last he climbed 
back to his bunk. “It’s no use talking,” 
he said to himself, as he settled down again, 
“I must have dreamt this. What prob- 
ably bothered me was my bath wrap hanging 
on the door.” He pulled his watch from his 


42 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

pajamas pocket. It was just one o’clock. 
‘‘I believe I’ll stay awake, though, for a 
while,” he soliloquized, “and see if any- 
thing really does happen. I ’m not going 
to disturb Bob’s slumbers, though.” 

Settling himself comfortably on his side. 
Jack looked down on the little room be- 
neath him. A feeling of unreality crept 
over him as he gazed. Could he be the 
same boy who had been reciting Virgil in 
the Latin class two weeks before? Some- 
how the outlines of the stateroom, as they 
appeared in the dim light, seemed theatric 
and artificial. The never ceasing pulsa- 
tion of the propeller, the slight motion of 
the boat, regular as the beating of his own 
heart, began to be unreal, too. Gradually, 
Jack began to fall under the spell of sleep. 
The sound of the screw turned into the 
vibrations of an airship motor, and the lad 
was floating off into unconsciousness, when 
a slight creak in the passage outside roused 
him to full wakefulness once more. In an 


AN ETON BOY APPEARS 


43 

instant he was up on his berth, ready to 
spring down; and then, thinking better 
of it, he sank back on his arm. 

Above the regular noises of the boat came 
a new sound — the sound of metal pulling 
out of wood. It stopped, and then began 
again. For a third time the slight scrape 
was repeated. 

Never had Jack’s senses been so com- 
pletely alert. There was not an inch of 
the stateroom that was not photographed 
on his brain, not a sound of the night which 
did not ring in his ears. 

A fourth time the scrape began. It ended, 
and Jack saw the end of the chain moving 
from the place where it had been clamped 
to the wall. To his utter amazement, a 
block of wood about three inches square 
came out from the casing with the chain. 
Two fingers held the block as it moved. The 
hand let the block of wood, swinging at the 
end of the chain, drop noiselessly to its full 
length, the door swung slowly back, and a 


44 


JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

dark figure with a black handkerchief over 
its face, entered. The visitor closed the 
door with the same care with which he had 
opened it, bent to look at Bob, then with 
a silent step mounted the trunk which pro- 
jected from beneath the lower berth, to look 
at Jack. 

From the moment the intruder had en- 
tered the room. Jack had made up his 
mind to know his business, and if possible 
to ascertain whether he was a common 
sneak thief after any valuables he might 
get, or whether he was on some other, some 
more mysterious, errand. 

With a supreme effort of will, he lay 
back motionless, his eyes closed, his chest 
expanding and contracting with a slow 
regularity. The man, satisfied by his in- 
spection, stepped down and turned away. 
Under the shadow of his arm. Jack opened 
his eyes. The thief had turned directly 
to the engine cases. He knelt on one knee 
beside them, and Jack heard a faint click 


AN ETON BOY APPEARS 45 

of metal as the man’s hand went forward 
with a key. One lock turned, then another, 
and Jack felt the time had come. Silently 
he rose, and then jumped with all his force 
directly on the kneeling man. As he leaped 
he shouted: 

‘‘Bob, Bob, help! ” 

Down went the man at the sudden attack, 
up went his hands with the bunch of keys, 
and Jack grasped them as he struggled. 
Bob was beside him in an instant, and a 
fierce combat began between the man and 
the boys. Up and down the few square 
feet of the cabin floor they went, until the 
man, striking his head sharply, suddenly 
went limp all over and lay flat. 

“We’ve laid him out,” gasped Jack, 
breathless. “Tie his hands with the strap 
from my bag there.” 

As Bob turned to get the strap. Jack for 
a moment relaxed his vigilance. The next 
moment he found himself thrown as by a 
catapult against the couch, and saw the 


« 46 JACK COLLERTON^S ENGINE 

presumably unconscious man in the door- 
way. The next moment he was flying 
down the corridor. 

‘‘He’s gone!” cried Jack, and the two 
boys started after in full pursuit. As they 
entered the narrow aisle, they could see 
the gray figure at its end darting to the 
left. On they dashed. Now he turned to 
the right. Now to the left. 

“Stop thief! Stop thief!” cried Bob, as 
the running form turned once more. A 
startled steward joined in the chase, and 
the clamor rose. 

“Here he is!” cried Bob, and the three, 
the steward and the two boys, leaped at a 
form at the top of a dark staircase. All 
four fell in a heap through a door and into 
the dim light of the writing-room. A gleam 
of gold braid showed their mistake. They 
had seized one of the officers of the watch, 
who was just off duty. 

It took some time for mutual explana- 
tions, time which was precious, for the 


AN ETON BOY APPEARS 47 ' 

chance of catching their masked visitor 
was lost. But the explanations were finally 
made, and, none the worse for his tumble, 
the officer started back with the boys to 
their cabin. The ship was subsiding into 
calm as they passed. Lights were going 
out in the staterooms, and protruding heads 
retreated from the doors as the passing 
officer said a reassuring word. 

Their own corridor was still dark and 
quiet when they reached it, and turned 
towards their cabin. As they entered the 
door. Jack turned the switch of the incan- 
descent, saying: ‘‘I’d like to have you 
look at my cases first.” The light sprung 
on, and the boys looked at the corner where 
the cases had rested since they arranged 
their baggage. It stared back at them 
blank and empty. The cases were gone. 


CHAPTER THREE 


THE TENDER AT QUEENSTOWN CARRIES 
SOME UNEXPECTED LUGGAGE 

The two boys and the officer stared 
blankly at the empty space. Then Bob’s 
jaw came up with a snap. 

^‘So that was what he was after, Jack! 
Perhaps I was wrong, after all.” 

‘‘Never you mind. Bob. We did the 
best we could,” said Jack bravely. 

“There’s little chance of a thief keeping 
anything sizable, anyway,” said the officer. 
“There’s a careful inspection every morn- 
ing, and, big as the ship is, it’s hard to 
hide things. Now tell me just what you 
lost, and how you lost it.” 

Jack told the whole story graphically, aided 
in some degree by Bob. He was just finish- 
ing when he stepped backward, and jumped 


THE TENDER AT QUEENSTOWN 49 

with a sudden ‘‘Ouch!’’ He stooped down 
and picked up a bunch of keys. 

“Why, here are the keys with which he 
was unlocking the cases!” he cried. “Why, 
they’re my keys,” he went on, with a start 
of amazement. “But he had them in his 
hand when he came in!” 

“Suppose he’d been in before?” asked 
Bob. 

“That’s what it is,” said Jack. “He 
came in before, got my keys, and woke me 
when he did it,” and he told them the story 
of his first wakening. 

The officer was deeply interested. “Two 
things I don’t understand,” he said medi- 
tatively. “This business of the door, and 
why he tried to unlock the cases first, and 
then carried them away afterwards. The 
first thing is easily settled. Let’s look at 
the door.” 

For the first time since he had entered 
the cabin. Jack looked at the door, expect- 
ing to see the square block of wood with 


50 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

the iron clasp dangling at the end of the 
chain. To his amazement, the chain hung 
there alone. The block of wood with its 
clasp stood apparently as firmly connected 
with the wall as any other part of the casing. 

‘‘That’s what I don’t understand,” said 
the officer. “Don’t you suppose you left 
the chain unfastened?” 

Jack made no reply. He was on his 
knees examining the wood. Suddenly he 
jumped up, took a pair of small scissors 
from a shelf, and went back. 

Kneeling once more, he carefully scru- 
tinized the wood of the casing just parallel 
with the bolt of the chain. The officer and 
Bob bent to look also. Jack touched lightly 
with the end of the nail scissors three tiny 
nail heads, and then inserted the thin blade 
of the nail scissors below the head of the 
topmost pin. The fastening gave easily, 
and an inch of slender wire appeared. Seiz- 
ing it in his fingers. Jack pulled sharply. 
Out came inch after inch, until at last the 


THE TENDER AT QUEENSTOWN 51 

lad held out a nail six inches long, which 
looked as though it might have been fash- 
ioned from a woman’s hat pin. Without 
a word of comment he returned to his task, 
and succeeded in extracting two similar 
nails. 

As the last one came out, a block three 
inches square — the same block which Jack 
had seen before — slipped out from the 
apparently solid wood. Jack took it in 
his fingers, pulled it out, and turned to 
the eager spectators. A yawning cavity 
showed where the block had been removed. 

“That’s the way of it,” he remarked 
simply. 

“By Jove!” said the officer. “He must 
be a clever beggar, though. This is no 
amateur job. Now why did he try to 
unlock the cases 

“You’ve got me there,” remarked Jack 
meditatively. “I don’t see why on earth 
he went for those cases, unless he thought 
they contained something different from 


52 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

what they do. You see, they hold a knocked- 
down engine I ’m taking across, — an engine 
that is n’t of much use for anything but 
airships, anyway. No, there can’t be any- 
thing special in it. It must be a sneak 
thief.” 

“Not by a long shot,” said the officer 
decisively. “You’ve got to find some other 
reason back of this. No sneak thief ever 
fixed a door like that, when there are forty 
cabins wide open during the day that he 
could dodge in and out of. No, indeed, 
that ’s no common thief. The man who 
did that job was a man of brains.” 

“The way he did the trick was the neatest 
ever,” said Jack. “Evidently when he es- 
caped from us, he came straight back, and 
made up his mind the quickest thing to do 
was to take the cases whole. He took them, 
spent a minute in fixing the door, and 
escaped.” 

“By Jove!” said the officer again. “He 
certainly is a clever beggar. But he can’t 


THE TENDER AT QUEENSTOWN 53 

get your cases off. Somebody must have 
seen him take them, unless his cabin is right 
on this corridor, and certainly there’s no 
chance of his getting them for good, for 
we’ll turn the ship upside down, if neces- 
sary. Now if you ’ll write me out a de- 
scription of the cases and their contents, 
I ’ll report all this to the captain at once. 
While you ’re doing that, I ’ll get a car- 
penter here to put that door right, so no- 
body can do the same trick again.” The 
officer started to leave and then paused. 

rather fancy,” he remarked, “that neither 
of you had better say anything about this 
to any one. We stand a better chance that 
way.” 

By the time the door was fixed. Jack had 
written a full description of the cases and 
had turned it over, the gray dawn was 
entering the port-hole, and the night was 
past. Too excited to sleep, the boys dressed 
and went out on deck. 

Never was more thorough search than 


54 jack COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

that carried on for the next two days on 
board the steamer N orthumbria. It was 
the whole force of a magnificent organiza- 
tion controlled by law against the cunning 
of a single malefactor — and the malefactor 
won. Despite every effort, no trace of 
the cases could be found, and the officers 
at last were forced to put their trust either 
in the Queenstown or Liverpool customs, 
or else to rely on the overhauling of the 
boat afterwards. Deeper and deeper gloom 
settled over Jack and Bob. Bob felt little 
better about the matter than did Jack, for 
he could not but realize that his advice 
might have been the cause of the loss. 
The two boys, welded by the bond of sym- 
pathy, grew nearer and nearer together 
as the time went on. 

The evening of the fifth day, while the 
two were talking quietly in their deck 
chairs, they heard a commotion forward. 
A man ran by, and the cry rose: “One 
of the Irish lights is just ahead 


THE TENDER AT QUEENSTOWN 55 

Leaping from their chairs, the boys sped 
forward. Just off the port bow a twinkling 
light, Great Britain’s beacon, which stands 
as sentinel of this coast of the great island 
empire, was just discernible, flashing its 
welcome to the incoming ships. 

The sight of that friendly ray was too 
much for Jack’s composure. Wave after 
wave of “Channel fever,” as the English 
sailor calls it, of intense desire for land, 
thrilled him through and through. A new 
restlessness kept him straining towards his 
goal, a restlessness which aggravated his 
intense anxiety about the precious cases. 

That night neither of the boys caught 
more than a little troubled sleep. The 
boat was to reach Queenstown before dawn, 
and by one o’clock they were on deck, peer- 
ing eagerly ahead. Now and then shore- 
ward lights sprang from the velvety darkness, 
and the soft night breezes were redolent 
with the early summer odors of the land. 
The whole night seemed a part of some 


56 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

splendid harmony in which the hopes of 
the lads insensibly rose high, despite their 
past misfortune. 

‘‘Seems as though we must find ’em at 
Queenstown or at Liverpool,” said Bob 
meditatively, for the fortieth time. 

“I don’t see how we can help it,” answered 
Jack once more. “The captain has sta- 
tioned officers at every gangway. The cus- 
toms have been notified, and every piece 
of baggage that goes off will be examined 
through and through. I wish we might 
have been in the search, but I suppose it’s 
better the way the captain has arranged 
it. We could n’t do anywhere near as much 
as the officers can do.” 

Far ahead to starboard, a group of scat- 
tered lights began to cluster on the black 
horizon. “Queenstown,” remarked Bob. 

“Not much like the lights of a big city,” 
said Jack critically. 

“Oh! You really don’t see much of 
Queenstown here,” said Bob. “The city’s 


THE TENDER AT QUEENSTOWN 57 

in back. We come only to the mouth of 
the harbor and the tender takes oS the 
passengers. The old boat brings out fresh 
vegetables, too, so you ’ll have a taste of 
some of the green things of the Emerald 
Isle to-morrow morning.” 

The lights were growing stronger and 
more distinct now. The ship was waking. 
Departing passengers were hurrying to and 
from the dining saloon. Stewards were 
staggering under loads of wraps and hand- 
bags. Liverpool passengers who wished to 
watch the disembarkation were coming on 
deck in semi-dress, covered by long coats. 
All interest centred in one spot, where a 
boat’s lights rose and fell on the quiet sea. 

“There’s the tender!” cried Bob, as the 
big liner slowed down, slowed still more, 
and then, with her own momentum, ran 
alongside the queer tub of a tender, which 
lay rising and falling in the trough of the 
sea. 

The two boys had gained a position 


58 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

from which they could look down directly 
on the broad, flat decks and the central 
pilot-house of the tender below. Hampers 
high-piled with produce, which overflowed 
their boundaries, filled the bow and showed 
darkly green against the light wood of the 
decks, the shades intensified by the com- 
bined effect of the yellow lights of the 
tender and the white lights of the liner. 

“What do they do first?” asked Jack. 
“Take off the provisions, or take on the 
passengers?” 

As he spoke, his question was answered. 
The moorings of the tender made fast, a 
gangway was rapidly raised from the lower 
deck, and a swift procession of stewards 
ran down the incline, seized the hampers, 
and bore them in a long procession upwards. 
Like magic, the last one disappeared. 

A brief pause, and the first-class pas- 
sengers strolled across and took their places 
on the upper deck. The second-class pas- 
sengers, moving somewhat more briskly, 


THE TENDER AT QUEENSTOWN 59 

followed. Last of all came the steerage, 
a motley throng, pouring through in full 
tide. 

Some of these last were apparelled in 
American clothes, and seemed back for a 
vacation trip to the old home. Some of 
them were apparently dressed in the very 
rags in which they had left the old country, 
looking as if beaten back by the hurrying 
harshness of the new land to the quieter, 
easier waters of the land which gave them 
birth. Swift and slow, exultant and sad, 
they poured through the narrow aisle, their 
eyes bent on the lights of the dim shore 
ahead. 

Jack stood watching the passing luggage 
with eager eyes. It was, of course, easily 
possible to take the engine from its cases 
and repack it in another form, yet so oddly 
shaped were many of the pieces, so per- 
fectly contrived for their use the cases in 
which they were held, that it seemed as 
though their irregularities of form might 


6o JACK COLLERTON^S ENGINE 

lead to detection, if any ordinary bag were 
used. Rough parcels were more likely to 
contain such parts, and with searching 
eyes Jack watched the bedding and the 
rolls of wraps which the steerage passengers 
were piling directly beneath him, some 
thirty feet below. 

‘‘There’s a good show of his trying to 
get things off through the steerage,” their 
friend Soamers, the officer whom they had 
assaulted, had told them that afternoon. 
“I’m going to keep a sharp lookout on the 
bedding, when I go ashore at Queenstown. 
I don’t go up to Liverpool this voyage. 
I ’ve got to go directly back on the Cambria, 
The captain has assigned me to look out 
for your engine especially.” 

Roll after roll of bedding was deposited 
beneath Jack’s eyes. Bundle after bundle 
was added to the heap, till the last passenger 
had crossed the little bridge, and the officer 
below, looking up, met Jack’s gaze with 
a shake of the head and an inquiring look. 



He landed, sprawling, on a heap of bedding in the bow 

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THE TENDER AT QUEENSTOWN "6i 

Jack shook his head negatively in return. 
He had not obtained the slightest clew 
from the disembarkation. 

As he stood staring downwards, waiting 
for the tender to cast off, a swift rush of 
stewards, bearing empty hampers, crossed. 
One by one, they piled the empty ^ cases at 
one side, and returned as rapidly as they 
came. The gang plank felHback with a 
clatter to the deck; the pilot on the^b ridge 
of the little boat gave a hoarse command. 
That possibility seemed closed. 

‘‘See those hampers! They’re heavy!” 
cried Bob suddenly. Two sailors, piling 
the hampers to one side, were lifting one 
of the wicker cases with some difficulty, a 
third was hastening towards them, and a 
rough altercation seemed _ rising. “Wot’s 
in this blooming thing? It’s ’eavy as 
lead!” came up to Jack’s ears, as he watched 
the struggling men. 

An instant of silence reigned as the 
attention of the multitude turned in that 


62 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

direction. The heavy hamper at one side, 
becoming displaced, fell to the deck, and up 
through the stillness floated a bell-like sound 
from clanging metal. To Bob’s amazement, 
he saw Jack rush from his place and dis- 
appear through the nearest door. For an 
instant he stood with open mouth, won- 
dering. Then, by a sudden intuition, he 
leaned far over the steamer’s side to see 
Jack mount the rail of the deck below and 
shoot out in a long graceful curve on to 
the tender, which lay some ten feet or so 
below. 

He landed, sprawling, on a heap of bed- 
ding in the bow, and Bob, to his great 
delight, saw Jack pick himself up apparently 
unhurt from the thick pile, and scramble 
towards the hampers. The altercation had 
suddenly ceased; two sailors still stood with 
the hampers between them, but the third 
party to the struggle had disappeared. 

As Jack climbed off the pile, he felt his 
collar seized by a rough hand, and realized 


THE TENDER AT QUEENSTOWN 63 

that he was being dragged unceremoni- 
ously forward by an angry petty officer. 

“ ’Ere, ’ere, none of this! None of this!” 
his captor exploded. ‘‘Whatcher mean? 
Whatcher mean by this ’ere?” 

With what little breath he had left. Jack 
called, “Mr. Soamers! Mr. Soamers!” and 
from the crowd beyond, his officer friend 
appeared. 

“Those hampers — my engine! I heard the 
sound when it dropped!” he cried chokingly. 

A wave of the hand, and Jack was free 
to seek the hampers, while, scarcely less 
eager than himself, Soamers leaped to his 
side. From the bridge far above a deep 
voice sounded forth: “Hold the tender 
there!” and a bell sounded in the stillness 
of the night. 

The sides of the liner were crowded now 
with eager spectators. Windows '^were open- 
ing, stewards’ heads were peering through, 
sailors were hanging outside the rail, and 
a little group of officers, clustered at one 


64 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

end of the bridge, were watching curiously 
the dim scene. Below on the tender, the 
departing passengers were massed in a 
black moving throng behind a few sailors 
engaged in keeping a space clear. Here the 
yellow gleam of a lantern showed a blue- 
clad officer and a gray-clad boy eagerly 
working at the wire fastenings of a couple 
of big wicker hampers. Jack was the first 
to cut his way through, and with a final 
snap and a sharp pull, the cover rose. With 
a low cry. Jack half disappeared from view, 
pulled out some table linen, flinging it 
behind him with a careless hand, and then 
— lifted forth one case. As his case reached 
the deck, Soamers brought the second case 
to view. 

Up above, the tense stillness of the scene 
was broken by a wild “Hooray, hooray, 
hooray!” as Bob, in an ecstasy of delight, 
shouted forth his joy; and a lower sound 
of interested comment rose from the watch- 
ing audience. 


THE TENDER AT QUEENSTOWN 65 

Scarce hearing or realizing the tumult 
above him, Jack had already unlocked one 
case with a practised hand. He threw the 
cover back and glanced within. All was 
as when he saw it last. He opened the 
other, and the same conditions met his 
view. Without a moment’s delay, he snapped 
the locks and straightened up to meet 
Soamers’s outstretched hand. 

‘‘Oh, Mr. Soamers, let me get out of 
this!' Can I get back on board?” 

“Shall Mr. Collerton come aboard now, 
sir?” called Soamers. 

“Certainly,” came the response. “Bring 
the tender alongside again, and, Mr. Soam- 
ers, look out for the man who was trying 
to stop the sailors from handling the ham- 
pers.” 

As the words left the captain’s mouth, a 
splash came from the side of the boat, and 
a dozen voices called, “He’s gone over- 
board!” He had. There was a short, fruit- 
less search. A boat was lowered, and re- 


66 JACK COLLERTON^S ENGINE 

turned without result. The accomplice had 
escaped. Nor did further investigation on 
board reveal more. The way the engine 
got into the hamper remained shrouded in 
mystery. 

Again the great boat and the small 
touched sides. Again the ^ang plank rose, 
this time to receive two corners, as Jack 
and Soamers, bearing the cases, walked 
across. Soamers turned back and Jack dis- 
appeared towards his cabin. Once more 
the gang plank fell. Once more the ten- 
der cast loose and, in obedience to its 
twinkling bell, went on its way, as the 
gray dawn began to show vivid green 
fields bounded by whitewashed walls upon 
the cliffs. 

The hurry of packing was over. The last 
good-bys to steamer friends had been said 
and the last congratulations had been re- 
ceived, when Jack, with the two cases beside 
him, stood on the deck of the steamer, as 
she rode proudly the next afternoon up 


THE TENDER AT QUEENSTOWN 67 

the broad Mersey. Every item of the 
engine was present when Jack and Bob 
had unpacked and repacked the cases in 
the early morning, and two satisfied boys 
stood side by side as they passed the crowded 
banks and saw the thronging traffic of this 
great ocean-gate of England. Birkenhead 
on the one bank of the Mersey, and Liver- 
pool on the other, showed stretch after 
stretch of docks and wharves. 

^‘Prince’s Stage ahead, mother,’’ cried 
Bob. ‘^Doesn’t it seem good to be home 
again?” 

“It certainly does, my son,” replied Lady 
Angela. “I hope. Jack,” she went on, 
turning to him, “that you may find this 
a home place, too, after all your anxious 
voyage. You will go right up to London 
with us, will you not?” 

“I shall be very glad to do so. Lady 
Angela,” replied Jack warmly. “You don’t 
know how much I appreciate all you are 
doing for me.” 


68 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

I ’m glad to have two boys instead of 
one,” said Lady Angela, smiling. 

As she spoke, a passer-by halted. 
saw a cablegram for you, Mr. Collerton, 
as I got my mail.” 

. ‘‘Pll go,” cried Bob. ‘‘Look out for 
the cases.” 

In a minute he was back with the cable- 
gram. Jack tore it open swiftly and passed 
it to his friends. 

Improving rapidly. Hope out soon. 

Collerton. 

“ Rippin’ ! ” exclaimed Bob. “ Could n’t 
have better news on arrivin’.” 

“I’m so very glad,” said Lady Angela. 

Slowly the tugs, with petulant snorts and 
sudden rushes, pushed and pulled the liner 
up to Prince’s Stage. Without delay the 
moorings were caught and fastened. In a 
trice the gang plank ran up. 

The scene of departure from New York ' 
had been a fascinating one to Jack’s unac- 


THE TENDER AT QUEENSTOWN 69 

customed eyes."^ The scene of arrival at 
Liverpool was quite as attractive. The 
English ‘‘Bobbies,” with their chin-strapped 
helmets, the frogged black coat of the police 
inspector, with his bamboo stick, the blouses 
of the porters, the slightly different dress 
of the men and women, all indicated the 
change in nations, even though the high 
buildings beyond the wharves and the ele- 
vated tracks piercing a cross street just 
ahead seemed little different. 

The trunks and bags had cascaded down 
a chute, and the crowding rush to the shore 
had become a slow departure, when the 
three voyagers walked down the gang plank, 
through a corridor, and out on to a plat- 
form where a train of cars stood waiting. 
Large letters at the left proclaimed the 
place of waiting for the customs. 

Simple enough the British customs were. 
A glance at his engines, a brief query con- 
cerning tobacco and spirits answered in 
the negative, a few chalk marks, and the in- 


70 JACK COLLERTON^S ENGINE 

spection was done. Jack turned to see Bob 
beckoning to him from a window of the train. 

“Get this porter to put your box and bags 
in the luggage-van, and come on in here,” 
he called. 

A porter came hurrying as Bob spoke, 
who seized Jack’s things skilfully, carried 
them to the luggage-van and returned. 

Bob was beside Jack now. “Give him 
a shillin’,” said Bob, and Jack obeyed. 

“Tuppence or thrippence is enough gen- 
erally,” remarked Bob, “but this landin’ 
business is different.” 

“How about my check?” asked Jack. 

Bob looked at him blankly for a moment. 
“Oh, you mean your luggage check,” he 
said. “We don’t use ’em over here, — at 
least not generally. All you’ll have to do 
is to claim your box and bags at Euston. 
Come on.” 

Jack followed at the word, entered a car 
which seemed to him to consist mainly of 
open doors, crossed a narrow aisle and 


THE TENDER AT QUEENSTOWN 71 

entered a compartment with opposite seats, 
where Lady Angela was already installed. 

‘‘Put your cases up in the rack,” said 
Bob. “Now here we are, all right. I’m 
goin’ to get a paper. I want to see what 
I can find out about your airship compe- 
tition.” 

Jack sank back into his seat without a 
word. The new impressions crowding on 
his brain left him without the slightest 
desire for speech, and Lady Angela, recog- 
nizing the condition, sat back watching 
him sympathetically. Ten minutes passed. 
Bob strolled in with an armful of papers, 
which he immediately began to scan. Five 
minutes more and the train started. Jack 
felt the thrill of the discoverer, as the 
wheels gave their first movement. He was 
off at last into the realm of which he had 
dreamed so long, — into the land of his 
ancestors. 

Roaring through black tunnels relieved 
by spots of light, through rows of brick- 


72 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

walled warehouses, across dingy suburban 
streets, by a common where men clad in 
flannels were playing cricket, the train 
passed into a country where the soft green 
of the hedgerowed fields seemed to awake 
old instincts of pleasure. 

The scenes seemed once more to be unreal 
as those of the theatre. A cluster of farm- 
houses, a tiny village with thatched roofs 
surrounding an old stone church crowned 
with a Gothic tower, and then, on a high 
bluff nestling in a clump of lofty trees, the 
gray walls of a castle! Of a sudden it all 
turned real, and Jack realized that he was 
moving, living in the sister-land across 
the sea, — that he was in England. 

Bob broke in on his reverie with a sudden 
exclamation. 

“Say, here’s a go!” he cried, waving his 
newspaper indignantly. “Here ’s something 
about the airship competition. Too jolly 
much, I should say. Parliament’s passed a 
bill at the instigation of some little Eng- 


THE TENDER AT QUEENSTOWN 73 

landers, makin’ the competition for the 
airship engines open only to British firms 
with a British subject as chairman of the 
Board of Directors. What chance will you, 
an American, have against such a propo- 
sition?” 


CHAPTER FOUR 


MR. BENJAMIN TWOMELL OF THE INNER 
TEMPLE GIVES SOME VALUABLE ADVICE 

BOB’S report of the action of Parlia- 
ment proved correct. No application had 
been received from any foreign firm up to 
the time the bill was passed, and it was 
considered, therefore, that no one would be 
injured. Three British firms, the Mann- 
heim Company, the Ayretoun Company, 
and the Maxwell-Stern Company were 
already entered. As a concession, an amend- 
ment had been added to the bill, stating 
that applications from British firms might 
be admitted up to a date three days before 
the trials were to take place. 

The date of the first trials was set nine 
days away, and the place was given as Ter- 
jitet in Switzerland, the Swiss Republic 


MR. BENJAMIN TWOMELL' 75 

having extended their hospitality. The 
atmospheric and topographical conditions 
about Lake Leman made the choice of this 
location preferable to any that could be 
obtained in the British Isles. 

As he finished the column, Jack sat for 
a moment in silent retrospect. Then he 
straightened up and spoke slowly. ‘‘This 
last thing is too much. I Ve not believed 
there was anything but coincidence in what 
has happened up to the present time, but 
now I Ve about made up my mind there ’s 
somebody after me and after my engines. 
Here’s my experience on the dock at New 
York in the first place. They try to keep 
me from taking the boat. Here’s the bur- 
glary of an aeronautical engine in the second 
place, of an engine that would be worth 
next to nothing to anybody that was n’t 
going to use it for aeronautics — ” 

Bob could not wait for Jack’s third place. 
“Who do you think it is?” he interrupted, 
anxiously. 


76 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

■ Jack hesitated a moment before an- 
swering. ‘‘I can’t see anybody but the 
Mannheims,” he said slowly. “The other 
competing firms are much smaller, and both 
of them have a good reputation. The 
Mannheims are a big house who ’ve got 
the reputation of being by far, the worst 
of the bunch. But I can’t be sure,” he 
went on, “although they’ve pinched good 
men’s ideas along this line more than once. 
This bill in Parliament, though, is un- 
doubtedly the work of some wire-puller.” 

Bob sat up aggressively, with a pecu- 
liarly British attitude. “If you fancy,” 
he began hotly, “that Parliament passes 
bills from such motives — ” 

Jack waved his straw hat before his 
friend’s face. “Cool off! Cool off. Bob,” 
he remarked soothingly. “I tell you they 
play politics more or less everywhere.” 

“Now, boys,” said Lady Angela, laugh- 
ing, “don’t quarrel. The thing is done. 
What we want to do now is to devise some 


MR. BENJAMIN TWOMELL 77 

way of getting Jack out of his difficulties. 
It seems to me that the thing for Jack to 
do is to go to see Mr. Twomell. In a 
case of this kind expert advice is rather 
necessary.’’ 

‘‘Just the trick,” cried Bob exultantly. 
“Great idea, mother. It takes a woman 
after all to see the obvious thing to do.” 

“Who’s Mr. Twomell.^” asked Jack. 

“Our solicitor,” answered Bob. “Good 
fellow, great cricketer and an old varsity 
oar.” 

“He is an excellent lawyer besides those 
more important qualifications,” .said Lady 
Angela with a smile. “I don’t think you 
could be in better hands. If there is a 
way out of the difficulty, I think he ’ll find 
one.” 

With a sense of relief. Jack threw his re- 
sponsibilities temporarily aside, and watched 
the fascinating pictures before him. 

Poppies flecked with crimson the yellow 
of the fields; smocked laborers leaned on 


r 


78 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

their hoes to watch the train; slow jogging 
carts passed on the country roads. Once, 
by a crossing, he saw a high cart with two 
horses driven tandem by a pretty girl, 
with a stolid groom holding the bridle of 
the prancing leader. 

Then came terraced brick houses, rising 
in monotonous row after row, as the train 
entered the outskirts of a town, then fac- 
tories and shops, a main street which showed 
a double-decked tram, its top filled with 
passengers. More factories followed, more 
monotonous houses, now some detached 
villas with formal gardens showing from 
behind high walls, then a long stretch of 
park, where a herd of deer in a sun-dappled 
shade started at the rushing train. 

The twilight was coming down as the 
train sped through Harrow. 

‘‘Nothing but brick from now in,” said 
Bob. “Practically all the rest of the way 
it’s London.” 

At last the long train drew into the 


MR. BENJAMIN TWOMELL 79 

terminal, where Bob, leaning from the win- 
dow, called lustily for porters. Their lug- 
gage was quickly claimed and piled on top 
of two ‘‘growlers” or four wheelers, and 
it was but a brief time before Jack’s car- 
riage rolled across the station courtyard, 
between the great stone pillars that mark 
the entrance to Euston, and out into the 
quiet squares beyond. 

“It’s Bloomsbury for us to-night,” Bob 
had remarked. “We always stop at a 
place in Russell Square. We ’re not so 
tremendously long on tin, you know, so 
we don’t go to Mayfair. You come along 
with us, and if the people there can’t 
put you up, they’ll know somebody who 
can.” 

A short stop at the Burnes’ lodgings 
proved that their telegram from Queens- 
town had been received, that there was no 
room for Jack at that house, but that they 
had secured a room for him in Torring- 
ton Square, just beyond. 


8o JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

A moment’s parting, a last ‘‘See you 
to-morrow,” from Bob, and Jack took his 
way again towards his destination. There 
he was ushered by a trim maid into a room 
looking out into the trees of a fenced garden 
in the middle of a quiet square. He was 
domiciled in London at last. 

Where he was or how he got there mat- 
tered little to Jack that night. His steps 
seemed still swayed by the motion of the 
boat; the throb of the engine still hummed 
in his ears. He undressed swiftly and 
jumped into bed, where he fell at once into 
a dreamless sleep which lasted till a re- 
peated knock at the door brought him up 
with a startled “Yes!” 

“Gentleman to see you, sir,” came the 
answer. “A Mr. Burne, and I brought 
your hot water, sir.” 

“Show Mr. Burne right up,” called Jack, 
and in two minutes Bob came through the 
door. 

“Hullo, slow-boy!” he began. “Nine 


MR. BENJAMIN TWOMELL 8i 

o’clock. You are a later. Hurry up, and 
come down to Twomell’s. We’ve got to 
reach there by half after ten to see him. 
He’s going to play at Lord’s this after. 
I got him on the ’phone this mornin’.” 

A breakfast of golden marmalade and 
rolls, of tea and the inevitable toast on 
its plated rack started Jack on his way. 
The cases were locked in his closet, the 
door of his room was locked, and, with the 
mistress of the lodging-house warned. Jack 
felt he could leave his burdens safely for 
a few hours. 

As the two boys stood in the house door, 
the trees of the little garden in the square 
stood dripping disconsolately in the heavy 
mist, and the fronts of the houses across 
the way showed lights along the whole 
facade, despite the late daylight hour. 
The whole scene was dark and gloomy. 
The maid beside them whistled shrilly on 
a tin whistle, a call soon answered by the 
beat of hoofs on the pavement a§ a han- 
6 


82 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

som drove up, its side-lights showing yellow 
through the fog. 

“Middle Temple by way of Trafalgar 
Square,” said Bob, as the boys jumped in. 
“One and six if you do it right.” 

“Thenk you, sir,” came from the roof; 
the long whip cracked as the boys closed 
the apron before them, and they were off. 

“One and three is enough for the trip 
usually, but this is a bad day,” said Bob 
parenthetically, in an undertone. “You give 
a London cabby his fare and a tip. He 
can’t live otherwise.” 

Round two sharp corners, by another 
gardened square, past shops and hotels, the 
hansom sped. Jack sat silent, gazing out 
at a gray, dim city till a church on the left 
caught his view and he leaned forward. 
“St. Martin in the Fields,” said Bob briefly. 
“That ’s the National Gallery, where the 
Turner pictures are, we’re just passin’ now 
on the right, and here ’s Trafalgar Square.” 

A wide space of drifting fog, a glimpse of 


MR. BENJAMIN TWOMELL 83 

a great central column whose top bore a 
commanding figure, a glimpse of guarding 
lions and of heroic statues, a sound of 
splashing water, and the great square was 
passed. The cab swung sharply to the 
left into a maze of motor-busses and horse- 
busses, of cabs and wagons. 

A few hundred feet farther to the right 
and Bob exclaimed, “Charing Cross.” 

Jack leaned forward to see the drifting, 
watery clouds crossing the courtyard of a 
station where busy traffic moved. A little 
farther beyond, and Bob spoke again: 
“Here’s the Hotel Cecil, and the Savoy’s 
just beyond, in through those gateways.” 

On and still on through the dream city 
they sped, past a church straight in their 
path, then by some huge public buildings 
on their left. 

“Law courts,” said Bob. Then a moment 
later: “If you’ll look up there, you’ll see 
an image of old Temple Bar. This is 
where the original Temple Bar stood, and 


84 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

if we’d been by ^here a few hundred years 
ago we’d have seen it lined with traitors’ 
heads. This is the entrance to the city.” 

The cab slowed to a walk and stopped 
before a black arch, through which Jack 
could see a semicircle of dull light. ‘‘Here 
we are,” said Bob, as he threw back the 
apron and jumped out. Jack followed. 

’ Bob paid the driver, who touched his 
hat and disappeared. “We’ll meet mother 
here,” said Bob as they proceeded. “She 
had some business to do with Twomell this 
morning, so she said she ’d come down ahead 
of us.” 

The darkness of the arch gave way to the 
semi-light of a small square. The light of 
the square gave place to a yet narrower, 
blacker passageway, which led to yet another 
square, the sides of which, like the first, 
showed row upon row of yellow window 
lights. 

“Twomell’s stair,” said Bob, as they 
turned into a narrow entrance. 


MR. BENJAMIN TWOMELL 85 

Three toilsome flights followed. They 
ought to put an elevator here,” growled 
Jack, as he struggled upward through a 
darkness illuminated only by a single faint 
light at the head of each stair. Bob 
laughed. 

“What iconoclasts you fellows from the 
States are, anyway. Put a lift in the 
Temple! Why, ’t would make all the Knights 
Templars in the old round church rise in 
their graves. This is not half bad. Here 
we are.” 

The twentieth century office which the 
boys entered was a contrast indeed to the 
ancient setting in which it stood. Modern 
flling cases filled one side, a broad table 
was in the centre, a telephone, with the 
queer combination receiver and transmitter 
which the London exchanges still affect, 
was on the wall. A clerk seated on a high 
stool, with a quill pen behind his ear, seemed 
the only thing which fitted the background 
rather than the centre of the stage. 


86 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

“How do, Mr. Ayres,” said Bob to the 
clerk. “My mother here?” 

“Yes, sir, Mr. Burne,” the clerk replied, 
climbing down from his stool. “Lady An- 
gela Burne arrived twenty minutes ago. 
Mr. Twomell saw her directly. I am glad 
to see you back, sir. How did you find 
your cousins across the water? Hands 
across the sea, sir. The possibilities which 
appear to exist in the States have always 
fascinated me, sir.” 

“Great country,” said Bob. “Here’s a 
chap from the States with me. Mr. Ayres, 
this is Mr. Collerton.” 

“Mr. Collerton, sir. I ’m glad to meet 
you, sir,” said Mr. Ayres. “I have a great 
regard for your country, sir. I hope to 
see you again. Mr. Twomell will be ready 
now, Mr. Burne, so I must show you in. 
He told me to show you in when you arrived, 
sir.” 

The clerk opened a door into an inner 
office as modern as the exterior one. Lady 


MR. BENJAMIN TWOMELL 87 

Angela was seated in a big chair at one 
side of a massive desk, from behind which 
rose a long form in gray tweeds. 

‘‘Hullo, Bob,’’ said Mr. Twomell. “Good 
to see you.” 

“Good to see you, Mr. Twomell,” said 
Bob warmly. “How’d you come out yes- 
terday?” 

Mr. Twomell smiled. “Seventy-four and 
not out yet,” he said. “But if this beastly 
fog grows any worse, we can’t go on this 
afternoon.” 

“My eye, but that’s a rippin’ score 
against as good a bowler as Cox,” said Bob. 
“I’d like to go up to Lord’s and see you 
play this after.” He suddenly remembered 
himself. “Pardon me,” he said, “but let 
me introduce Mr. Collerton, Mr. Twomell.” 

“Glad to meet you, Mr. Collerton,” 
said Mr. Twomell cordially. ‘‘Lady Ange- 
la ’s been telling me about your experiences. 
If you ’ll sit down while Lady Angela gives 
me two signatures, I ’ll be at your service.” 


88 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

As Lady Angela signed her papers, Jack 
watched the lawyer. His long, wiry form 
and lean face showed evidences of training 
and fitness too seldom seen in the American 
professional or business man of the same 
type, who commonly takes his exercise 
in spasmodic jumps instead of in regular 
daily routine. The clipped upturned mous- 
tache, the loose tweeds, the browned cheek 
and hands showed the sportsman. The 
finely intellectual face showed the mental 
ability. Twomell’s heavy, black-rimmed, 
double eyeglasses, the wig boxes on a shelf, 
and the line of law books bound in heavy 
calf were the sole tributes to his pro- 
fession evident. 

Lady Angela finished her papers. Mr. 
Twomell folded them carefully, filed them, 
and then, snapping his double eyeglass 
together, he turned to the boys. “Now, 
Mr. Collerton, I ’m ready,” he said. 

Jack had carefully thought out his state- 
ment of affairs, and swiftly but logically 


MR. BENJAMIN TWOMELL 89 

he brought forward the salient points, his 
father’s sole ownership of the engine, the 
attempts to dispose of the invention to 
the United States, the decision to enter 
the competition, the start for England, 
his father’s accident, and the adventures 
of the trip across. 

‘‘Now as regards credentials,” he said. 
“Here are letters to the United States 
Consul General, to two members of Par- 
liament, to four members of the Aero Club, 
and to three prominent men of science.” 
He placed the envelopes on the desk in a 
pile. “Here are our passports and the 
card of my father’s lawyers in Boston. 
By cabling them, you can get any further 
credentials you may need. Lastly, here is 
my power of attorney, vised by the British 
consul in New York, which gives me full 
power to act as my father’s representative 
in all matters.” 

“One thing more,” added Bob. “Here’s 
the clippin’ from the Times about the matter.” 


90 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

With a snap, Twomell opened his double 
eyeglass, fixed it firmly on his nose, and 
then began to go carefully through the 
pile of papers before him. Half-way through 
the list he paused, and looked up with 
a smile. ‘H see you have a letter for 
Herr Mettelin, the greatest aeronaut of 
them all.’’ 

‘‘Yes,” answered Jack. “My friend, Mr. 
Gardner, gave me that letter. I only hope 
I shall be able to use it.” 

“You may have an opportunity,” said 
Twomell. “I saw by this morning’s paper 
that Mettelin was experimenting in Switzer- 
land at Lucerne, and you may have a chance 
to stop there, either going or coming.” So 
saying, he turned back to his task and con- 
tinued it until he had read every docu- 
ment, ending with the clipping from the 
Times, This last he read twice. Then he 
rose and paced up and down the room for 
a few times before speaking. 

“I happen to know your father’s solici- 


MR. BENJAMIN TWOMELL 91 

tors,” he said. ‘‘Have had some dealings 
with them, in fact. So it’s a simple matter 
to verify all this by cable. As a matter of 
formality, as long as the letters of intro- 
duction are for your father instead of for 
you, I fancy we’d better do that. That 
done, everything else is straight, so far 
as the legal side goes. But the action of 
Parliament stands right in the way. That 
act passed, there would be next to no chance 
to get a reconsideration in time for you. 
The only thing you can do is to organize as 
a British Company with a British subject 
as Chairman of the Board of Directors. 
Incorporation isn’t necessary, so far as I 
can see. Have you any friend who is a 
British subject, and whom you can suggest 
as your chairman?” 

Jack shook his head hopelessly. “There 
is n’t a soul here that I can think of.” 

“There are various reasons why I can’t 
serve myself,” Twomell went on, snapping 
his eyeglass thoughtfully. “And in the 


92 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

short time left, the securing of a man who 
would be with you heart and soul would be 
a difficult matter.’’ 

Jack shook his head again. ‘‘Outside 
of Bob here, I can’t think of anybody who 
could possibly do.” 

“Oh! If I only wasn’t a minor,” said 
Bob, mournfully, “I’d do it in a minute, 
and mother ’d let me. Would n’t you, 
mother? ” 

Lady Angela nodded. “Provided you 
didn’t cripple us financially, I shouldn’t 
have the slightest objection. I should like 
to have you have a bit of responsibility, 
and I should be very glad to do anything 
I could for Jack. But it’s no use wishing. 
You are a minor, and we have nobody 
on whom we could rightly call for such a 
service.” 

Mr. Twomell watched her keenly as she 
spoke. “You really mean. Lady Angela, 
that you would be willing and glad to 
have Bob serve if he could?” 


MR. BENJAMIN TWOMELL 93 

‘‘I certainly do,” replied Lady Angela, 
in surprise. “But why?” 

“Because he can,” was the unexpected 
answer. 

“Hooray!” cried Bob. “Good for you! 
Bob Burne, Chairman of the Board of 
Directors of the Collerton Engine Company. 
How the fellows will stare.” 

“But I didn’t suppose a minor could 
possibly serve,” said Lady Angela. “How 
does it come about that they can?” 

“It’s rather an odd story,” said Mr. 
Twomell, smiling. “But I ’ll tell you about 
it. You may remember a few years ago 
that they celebrated the semi-centennial 
of the discovery of the first aniline dye, 
mauve, — the first dye which was made in 
the laboratory, instead of being produced 
from a mineral or extracted from some 
plant of the fields.” 

“I do remember something of it, now 
that you mention it,” answered Lady 
Angela. 


94 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

‘^Then you may remember also that they 
especially honored at that time the dis- 
coverer of the dye, Sir William Henry 
Perkin, who, as a boy, fifty years before, 
had made the great find. I happened to 
know a friend of Sir William’s well, and 
the story of the whole thing is as fascinat- 
ing as a fairy tale. 

‘Ht seems Sir William was never intended 
to be a chemist, but as a youngster he was 
always meddling with test tubes, working 
with apparatus. He put up a little labora- 
tory of his own in his father’s house, as 
so many fellows have done since, and pot- 
tered around with one thing after another 
till he got together quite a stock of in- 
formation. He went to every lecture on 
natural science he could reach, too, and 
finally got a place as assistant in a chemi- 
cal laboratory. 

‘‘They were trying to make quinine where 
he was working, trying to make it in the 
laboratory from coal tar or its derivates. 


MR. BENJAMIN TWOMELL 95 

instead of getting it from the cinchona 
tree, and young Perkin worked on that 
problem night and day. 

‘^He never found out how to make qui- 
nine in the laboratory, — they Ve never found 
that out to the present day, — but he did 
find something bigger. One day he found 
in a tube a dirty mass that seemed to stain 
things. No dye had ever been found in 
that way before. Every dye known had 
come either from some part of the earth’s 
crust, or from some growing plant, but 
Perkin had imagination enough to conceive 
that he might have made a dye chemically 
in the laboratory. I like to think of the 
youngster standing there alone in the rough 
laboratory, in the middle of the night, hold- 
ing that tube with the dirty mass up in 
front of him, and looking at it by the dull 
oil light. 

‘‘It was a tremendous thing.” Twomell 
was waxing enthusiastic. “It opened a 
whole new era. Millions and millions of 


96 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

pounds have been invested in dye works 
and in the manufacture of every kind of 
cloth, and all of it began that night when 
the boy Perkin found the beginnings of 
the dye mauve. But I ’m talking too much 
about that,” said Twomell, coming back 
to earth. “The point is, Perkin was a 
minor when he made the discovery, and he 
had a most tremendous fight before he 
could get Parliament to grant him a patent, 
and allow him to serve on the Board of 
Directors of his company. He won, how- 
ever, and since that time, fifty years ago, 
minors have been able so to serve. They 
can serve to-day. Only a few times in the 
last half century has any one taken advan- 
tage of the possibility, but the law and 
the precedent are there; and if you. Bob, 
want to serve, and your mother is willing, 
I can put the thing through. And I can 
put it through in such a way that you ’ll 
undergo no financial responsibility.” 

“I agree,” said Bob, looking at his mother. 


MR. BENJAMIN TWOMELL 97 

“I do,” said Lady Angela, smiling at her son. 

^‘And I ’m no end glad to do the same,” 
ended Jack joyously. 

‘‘Then it’s agreed,” said Twomell. “I’ll 
have the papers made out in a minute. 
Now there’s just one thing more. I wish, 
Mr. Collerton, that you ’d repeat to me 
those conclusions you gave Bob coming 
up in the train, which made you believe 
there might be somebody after you.” 

Jack nodded. “I believe there is some- 
body definitely interested in injuring my 
chances for the competition, because of 
three things — first the attempt at the 
dock at New York to keep me from sailing; 
second, the stealing of the cases; and third, 
this action of Parliament.” 

“Now your three competitors?” said Two- 
mell, interrogatively. 

“One, the Ayretoun Company; two, the 
Maxwell-Stern Company; and three — ” 
Jack paused significantly — “the Mannheim 
Company.” 


98 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

‘‘That’s all I wanted to know,” said 
Twomell, and he turned away. 

An hour later, with agreements and re- 
leases signed, Robert Burne and John Col- 
lerton of the Collerton Engine Company, 
a British firm with a British subject as 
chairman of the Board of Directors, and 
with an American citizen as treasurer, 
walked down the dark stairs in company 
with Lady Angela. 

“Got that done in time for the big day 
of the regatta, too!” said Bob jubilantly. 
“Now we’re going home to Henley on the 
three-thirty train from Paddington. We’ll 
drive straight to our lodgings. You drive 
straight to yours, and meet us at the train. 
You can spare one day, now we ’ve got so 
much done, can’t you ? Think of the Dia- 
mond sculls to-morrow, and the race be- 
tween Leander and the Belgians. Don’t 
I hope we jolly well lick the Belgians this 
year, though! Leander ’s got a rippin’ 


crew. 


MR. BENJAMIN TWOMELL 99 

‘‘I believe I will come,” said Jack slowly. 
“ I don’t believe there is much I can do here. 
All I really must do is to get to Switzer- 
land in a week or so more.” 

As the two passed through the dim arches 
and courts of the Temple, the fog seemed 
heavier than ever, the lighted windows 
shone still more dully, and the way through 
the arch to Fleet Street was black indeed. 

Looks like a London Particular, all 
right. Unusually heavy for this time of 
year,” said Bob. ‘‘Hope we’ll be able to 
get to the train. If it should shut down 
much more, traffic will be stopped. Seems 
as if all the Thames in back of the Temple 
Gardens there must be risin’ in mist.” 
He whistled, and two hansoms came dash- 
ing up. Bob and his mother stepped into 
one. Jack jumped into the other. “Good- 
by, Jack,” called Bob. “See you at Pad- 
dington by the bookin’ office at three- 
fifteen.” 

“Sure thing,” answered Jack. 


100 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

As the interchange of greetings passed, 
a man on the street stopped short just 
behind Jack’s cab, and, when he heard 
Jack’s call, came quickly to the edge of the 
sidewalk. An empty hansom was just beside 
him, whose driver raised his whip in query. 
The passer nodded. ‘‘That cab just ahead 
is going to Torrington Square,” he said 
quickly. “Half a sovereign if you don’t 
lose sight of it.” “Right, sir,” said the 
cabman, and the man jumped in. 

Jack sat back unconscious of anything 
unusual, as the cab rolled slowly to his 
lodgings. He looked at his watch as they 
arrived. “Half-past one. How long will 
it take you to get to Paddington in this 
fog?” he queried of the driver. “I’d want 
an hour, sir,” was the reply. “Very well 
then, wait. I ’ll be out in half an hour,” 
said Jack. 

Jack swallowed a hasty lunch, caught up 
the engine cases, called a man to help him 
with his suit-case, and stepped into the 


MR. BENJAMIN TWOMELL loi 

hansom as a clock in the distance struck 
twice. 

“Fog’s in something terrible,” said the 
driver. “I’ll do the best I can, sir, but 
it’ll be slow work.” 

The opposite side of the street was wholly- 
hidden now, the trees in the garden of the 
square were nothing more than pale shades, 
and the passers-by were figures of mystery. 
The cases would not go inside the cab with 
the apron shut, so Jack had placed them 
just before him beside the dasher. They 
turned one corner, then another, and sud- 
denly the cabman pulled his horse sharply 
up, as he almost ran into a wall slightly 
darker than the rest. Even the horse’s 
head was shrouded in blackness now. 

They stopped stock-still while Jack turned 
instinctively to look out of the window 
in the rear to see if anything were likely 
to run into them. He heard a slight noise, 
and turned quickly back to see a ghostly 
arm lifting the second case from the wagon. 


102 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

He leaped forward, but the cases had gone. 
Jumping from the cab, he rushed to one 
side, ran into a child, then into a lamp- 
post, and then stopped still. He was lost 
in an ocean of fog which surrounded him 
on every side. He could see nothing. 


CHAPTER FIVE 


A REGATTA DAY AT HENLEY 

Jack stood alone in the dense fog. He 
had completely lost his sense of direction. 
Pursuit of the robber who had taken his 
cases was wholly vain. Even his cab, with 
his suit-case on the seat, might be moving 
straight away from him through the thick 
mist. 

In a perfect agony of disappointment and 
of vain regret, he realized bitterly how much 
worse his case was now than it had been 
before, when the cases disappeared for the 
first time. Then the possibilities of their re- 
capture were confined to a limited area, and 
the engine had presumably been taken by 
some one seeking it for its real value. Now 
the case had probably been seized by some 
one of the throng of criminals who rise up in 


104 jack COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

the London fogs, despite the splendid army 
of the Metropolitan police. Now they were 
probably being rapidly borne to some haunt 
of crime whence they could never be re- 
covered. 

The sounds of the passing street came 
to Jack’s ears with strange reverberations. 
The hoarse cry of warning drivers and the 
creak of wheels, an occasional slight scrape 
as of a collision reached him, and then a 
repeated cry drawing nearer. It sounded 
strangely like “Torrington Square.” 

Jack listened yet more sharply. Then 
it came again. The sound was certainly 
coming closer. Now other words became 
distinct. “Young man from Torrington 
Square, this way! Young man from Tor- 
rington Square, this way!” 

It was the ingenious cabman seeking his 
lost fare. With a quick cry. Jack sprang 
forward. “Here I am! Here’s the man 
from Torrington Square! ” As he called, the 
cab drew slowly up alongside, and the 


A REGATTA DAY AT HENLEY 105 

cabby, as Jack jumped on the step, leaned 
over with a look of disgust. “Well, you 
are a queer ’un,’’ he exclaimed disparagingly. 
“Jumping out of a cab in a fog like this.” | 

“My big cases were stolen,” cried Jack 
despairingly. “And I jumped after the 
sneak thief, but I lost him.” 

“Really!” said the cabman, with deep 
interest. “You never could catch a thief 
in this ’ere fog. Your other case there?” 

Jack glanced at the seat. “Yes, it’s 
here,” he replied. 

“Where to, sir?” asked the cabby. 

“Nearest police station,” answered Jack, 
and the cab moved slowly forward. 

The mist was lightening now, and the 
world around was coming into view; the 
horse accelerated his pace, and in a short 
time stopped before a yellow brick structure 
which bore the sign of the police. Jack 
jumped out, suit-case in hand this time, 
and hurried in. 

A soldierly looking official stood behind 


io6 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

the desk as Jack entered, noted the facts 
in silence as the story was told, and stood 
thoughtfully for a moment as it ended. 
Finally he spoke. 

‘‘This is a case for Scotland Yard, I fancy, 
sir, rather than for any one else. Is there 
anything more you could give us?’’ 

“No,” answered Jack. “I’ve told you 
everything I know.” 

“Then I ’ll report in full,” said the officer, 
“and if you’ll leave me your address I’ll 
send you word of anything we find. But 
I don’t believe I can give you much hope, 
sir.” 

Jack left his temporary address. “John 
Collerton, Care of Robert Burne, Esq., 
The Grange, Henley-on-Thames,” and went 
on to Paddington with a saddened heart. 

Bob was waiting for him beside the 
booking office, and rushed towards him as 
he entered. “Mother ’s in the train. Hurry 
up,” he said. “Why didn’t you bring the 
cases?” 


A REGATTA DAY AT HENLEY 107 

‘‘Because they’ve been stolen again,” 
answered Jack, in a dismal tone. 

“What?” cried Bob. “Not really?” 

“Really,” answered Jack, and as they 
passed through the station and out into 
the train shed, he briefly recounted the 
story of the loss. 

“Think you ought to stay here?” asked 
Bob, as he finished. “If you do, don’t 
hesitate to say so.” 

“No,” replied Jack, thoughtfully. “I don’t 
see how I could do anything, if I was 
here. I might just as well go down with 
you. They ’ll notify me by telegraph if they 
want me, and I can run up easily.” 

“We can do better than that,” said Bob. 
“We have a telephone at home. Call up 
the police station and tell them to ’phone 
you. Hurry, though.” 

“All right,” answered Jack, hurrying off, 
“I will.” 

The trip down to Henley, with its glimpse 
of castled Windsor, its stretches of river 


io8 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

covered with gay pleasure craft of every 
type, of Maidenhead and of the whole 
beautiful Thames Valley would have been 
a source of deep joy to Jack under normal 
circumstances. Now he could only sit si- 
lent in his corner seat, gazing out of the 
window in blank misery. 

The express swung off the main line at 
Twyford, and soon slowed down at the lit- 
tle Henley station, where the three stepped 
out into a sea of gay hats and sunshades, 
of white flannels and Panamas emblazoned 
with every color and device under the sun. 
As they made their way through the joyous 
throng. Bob managed to throw a sentence 
or two to Jack. 

‘‘You’d never know this old town if 
you saw it at another time,” he said. “It’s 
sleepy enough generally. It’s only on re- 
gatta days that it looks like this. Then 
it ’s the focus for everybody who can reach 
here.” 

Out of the station they passed into a 


A REGATTA DAY AT HENLEY 109 

trim station trap driven by a liveried coach- 
man, on the broad grin at the return of 
his mistress and his young master, and 
then over the old stone bridge that crossed 
the slow moving Thames. To the right 
were boats galore. To the left, as far as 
the eye could reach, were punts, whiffs, 
and canoes, pair oars, four oars, and occa- 
sional launches. One distant bank was lined 
with gay house-boats, the other showed 
wide stretches of canvas pavilions, while 
low, wooden boat-houses stood in the imme- 
diate foreground. Jack drew a long breath, 
quite carried beyond his miseries by the 
spectacle. “I never saw so many boats 
together in my life,’’ he said. 

“Pooh! This is nothing,” said Bob. 
“Wait till to-morrow. You can just about 
walk across the river then on the heads of 
the people if you wanted to. That ’s Lean- 
der’s boat-house on the left we’re just 
passin’,” he went on. “Leander’s made 
up of most of the big oars, the men who ’ve 


no JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

made one of the varsities. It’s a picked 
crew from Leander that ’s goin’ to row the 
Belgians to-morrow. Don’t I hope they 
win!” 

A short drive up the river, and the car- 
riage turned into a semi-circular drive which 
ran back through some shrubbery to an 
old brick house. 

‘‘Home at last mother!” cried Bob. 
Jack had a confused impression of greet- 
ing, white-capped maids, of a cool long 
hall which through a farther door gave a 
glimpse of green lawn and shining river, 
of a long, bare staircase, and finally of a 
cool room, spotless in chintz and muslin, 
which looked out on a tiny formal garden, 
a clump of trees, and a stretch of lawn end- 
ing in a boat-house and the river. 

A quiet dinner and a stroll in the garden 
afterwards calmed his troubled nerves, and 
once in bed. Jack slept soundly. Waked 
the next morning by sounds from the river, 
he looked out to find Henley early astir. 


A REGATTA DAY AT HENLEY in 


A house-boat on the opposite bank, already 
gay with bunting, was filled with a party of 
chattering girls. Jack put on his flannels 
and came down-stairs to find Bob already 
there. A quick breakfast and the two boys 
started for the boat-house. Inside, a trim 
canoe and a square-ended punt lay side by 
side. 

‘‘I guess we’ll take the punt,” said Bob 
reflectively. ‘‘The canoe is a little too 
ticklish for this day. We’ll take a couple 
of paddles as well as the pole, and if there 
is n’t room to pole we can paddle. We ’ll 
have to paddle this afternoon, anyway. 
Don’t ever remember having had a chance 
to choose before. Generally we have the 
house full regatta week, but we couldn’t 
be sure of getting back this year.” 

As they cleared the boat-house. Jack 
watched Bob’s easy manipulation of the 
punt pole with undisguised envy. With 
long, strong shoves, with clever balancing 
and steering. Bob made the clumsy appear- 


1 12 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

ing craft shoot swiftly ahead towards the 
centre of the town and the old bridge. 
There the great day of the regatta was 
already begun. 

The morning showed a card of splendid 
racing. Jack, forgetting all his troubles, 
shouted himself hoarse as Leander’s eight 
swept gloriously by the finish, with the Bel- 
gians exerting every ounce of their strength 
some five lengths behind. Race after race 
showed fine form and splendid work on the 
part of the oarsmen. When luncheon time 
had come. Jack was fully ready to agree 
that the Henley Regatta was one of the 
great sporting events of the world. 

A hasty luncheon was bolted by the boys, 
and in half an hour they were hurrying 
back to the river, this time accompanied 
by Lady Angela. The crowd of the morn- 
ing, great as it had been, was augmented 
now by hundreds of craft of every descrip- 
tion. Punts, canoes and launches, skiffs, 
wherries and shells, old boats, new boats. 


A REGATTA DAY AT HENLEY 113 

and boats in every stage between, filled the 
river from bank to bank. In between them 
passed broad boats carrying small pianos 
and singers gayly dressed and masked. 
Music was sounding, laughter was ringing, 
and the mile of river was filled with shifting 
life in its brightest and gayest array. 

As Bob and Jack paddled down the course 
inside the floating logs which marked the 
limits. Jack exclaimed: ‘‘I can’t under- 
stand how they ’ll ever be able to clear this 
course again!” 

“They’ll do it, all right,” answered Bob. 
“They’ll have to. It’s the Diamond Sculls 
next.” 

Even as he spoke, the shrill warning of 
the police boats sounded, and the upper 
part of the course became cleared as by 
magic. Nearer and nearer came the offi- 
cial launches, and Bob hurriedly turned 
the punt to the nearest gate. Just as he 
passed through, the guard shot back the 
big log, and the punt rested right beside 


1 14 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

the gate with a full and uninterrupted view 
of the course. 

Far up as the eye could reach stretched 
an open pathway of shining river, bounded 
by its floating wall. On either side, packed 
so closely that bow touched stern and side 
overlapped side, so that paddles must rest 
within, and not so much as a hand could 
rest safely on the gunwale, were boats, 
boats, boats, filled to the limit of safety 
with eager spectators. Back of the smaller 
craft stood big house-boats gay with diverse 
ornaments. The gray stone of Phyllis Court 
stood out in relief on one side, opposed by 
the white canvas of Clubland on the other, 
and back of all the incomparable verdure of 
the shores rose in serried beauty from the 
banks of the Thames. 

Suddenly there was a stir far up the 
course, a movement just discernible to 
Jack as he leaned far over the boat’s 
edge. The sound of a pistol shot came 
dully to his ears, and a swelling cry, rising 


A REGATTA DAY AT HENLEY 115 

in regular waves, increased in volume as it 
approached. 

There were two white streaks now and 
two flashes of sunlight that lifted and sank. 
Presently the streaks took form and became 
two slim shells, holding two men, who rose 
and fell with absolute precision; the flashes 
of sunlight became their rhythmic oars. 

The sound-wave rose to its crest, then 
began to sink into a gradual diminuendo 
as the shells swept by, and Jack saw two 
faces set in grim determination, two power- 
ful bodies at the very height of physical 
exertion, and two pairs of twinkling oars. 

As the boats raced on. Jack leaned peril- 
ously to one side. As he did so, an equally 
anxious youth behind reached out too far, 
lost his balance, and came smartly down, 
clutching Bob’s punt. Jack swayed and 
fell flat on his back, heels in air, and head 
buried in a pile of pillows behind him. 

Submerged by the pillows, Bob’s hearty 
laugh reached through as he struggled out 


Ii6 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

into the light. As he came out from the 
pillows, he faced upward into the sky 
above, and saw a sight which made even 
the finish of the Diamond Sculls a matter of 
slight importance. A hundred feet above, 
practically unseen by the huge multitude 
intent on the great race, a dirigible, oper- 
ated and occupied by a single man, was 
pitching wildly. 

Jack spoke quickly to Lady Angela, who 
was just in front of him. ‘‘Look up there 
at the airship!” Bob heard the words, and 
looked up as well. In a moment all the 
regatta was forgotten. 

The dirigible was evidently in perilous 
^straits. Now it dived suddenly and seemed 
about to plunge the tip of its cigar-shaped 
balloon into the crowd on the river below, 
while the operator, climbing forward on his 
ladder-like frame, seemed to be striving to 
make adjustments. 

As the operator returned. Jack could see 
the screw propeller of the engine racing 


A REGATTA DAY AT HENLEY 117 

frantically as the dirigible resumed its former 
position, while the man on the frame, for 
a brief space of time, sat still, clinging 
dazedly with both hands to his place. 
There was a strong breeze, and the machine 
was drifting up the river. 

‘‘It’s going straight for our place,” said 
Bob, as he watched. “There, the race is 
over and Blackton’s won,” he added, as 
the sound of the cheering at the finish 
died away. “Now let’s hurry home.” 

The log gate shot back as Bob spoke. 
With a sudden turn of the paddle. Bob drove 
the boat within, and with all their force 
the boys sent her up the free course. On 
they sped past the watching crowd, who 
were only just beginning to see the air- 
ship. As they bent to their paddles. Lady 
Angela watched the movements overhead, 
and reported the passage of events. 

“The ship’s bow down, again,” she said 
hurriedly, “and the man has gone forward. 
Now it’s reversing. He has gone back to 


ii8 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

his seat. The motor has stopped now, and 
he has left the engine. He’s working on 
a rod with a wrench. It ’s rising. No, it ’s 
turning. It’s sinking though. Yes! It’s 
sinking steadily. It’s headed straight for 
our house. If you pull hard, boys, we ’ll 
get there just in time. There ’s a name on 
the lower side of the balloon. I can’t read 
it. If it will only turn a little more, I can 
get it. There it is. ‘The Man — ’ that ’s all 
I can get. Now the side is turning so I can 
get it. ‘The Mannheim Company.’ Jack, 
it’s one of your competitors.” 

The boys bent silently and doggedly 
to their paddles, forcing their way through 
the throng, with only Bob’s steady “Thank 
you! Thank you!” as a warning note, and 
his “Sorry! Sorry!” as he bumped into 
some peaceful and surprised wanderer. The 
boats were heading up river towards “The 
Grange,” and going became more difficult. 

Lady Angela spoke again. “I think if 
the airship does land on our place, we had 


A REGATTA DAY AT HENLEY 119 

better receive the man ourselves, and let 
Jack remain here in the boat. It may do 
no harm for Jack to stay out of sight.” 

‘‘Good idea, mother!” said Bob explo- 
sively, as they drove the boat on. “How 
about the dirigible?” 

“She’s sinking fast,” answered Lady An- 
gela. “But we’ll reach the shore before 
she can drift in. There ’s Lennen and Moxon 
now on the bank. They can keep people 
oif, if any try to land. I don’t think any 
one will. Jack, you had better push off, 
after Bob and I land.” 

With a final effort, the boys drove the 
boat up to the little landing place, where 
the coachman and the gardener were ready 
to receive them. A quick spring, and Lady 
Angela was ashore, followed instantly by 
Bob, who shoved the boat off as he went. 
Jack, with a few strokes, thrust himself 
into the midst of a dozen crowding boats, 
sat back and looked up. The airship was 
sinking directly down on the Grange lawn, 


120 JACK COLLERTON^S ENGINE 

and the boats were crowding along the 
banks. The ‘^No Trespassing” signs and 
the watchful presence of Lennen and Moxon 
had prevented any from landing. Lady 
Angela and Bob were walking toward the 
house. 

The airship took a last rise, then a final 
fall, and, just as Lady Angela and Bob 
reached the garden, some hundred feet in 
from the river, it descended slowly, as if 
tired from its exertions, into the branches 
of a great elm. Bob hastened forward to 
meet a man who came scrambling down 
with an anchor in his hand. Bob noted the 
heavy Germanic features and the high 
upturned mustache. 

The unexpected visitor landed on the 
ground, fixed the anchor firmly, then turned, 
setting his heels together with a formal 
military air, and made a stiff bow. 

“I must a thousand pardons ask,” he 
began in a guttural voice, ‘Tor this my most 
to be regretted and unwilling descent from 



Bob hastened forward to meet a man who came scrambling down 

Page 120 




A REGATTA DAY AT HENLEY 12 1 

the air. I am Mr. Emil Kunsch of the 
Mannheim Company of London.” 

“That’s all right, Mr. Kunsch. You’re 
entirely welcome to land at the Grange,” 
said Bob, carefully omitting to introduce 
himself. “If your airship is all right for 
the present, don’t you want to come in 
and wash up?” 

The German looked at his grease-black- 
ened hands and soiled clothing. “Ach!” 
he exclaimed. “There certainly nothing can 
be more necessary. The airship in its pres- 
ent state, whatever happens, must remain 
until I from London a man can get. Is 
there a telegraph station near?” 

Bob saw a lead in an instant. “Tele- 
phone at your service right in the house,” 
he exclaimed. 

The German gave one pained glance at 
his airship, fluttering wildly above the elm, 
and started, limping, along towards the 
house after Bob. They entered the house 
and went straight to the telephone, hang- 


122 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

ing in a small room at the left of the 
stairs. 

“This is a single line, Mr. Kunsch,” 
explained Bob; “so you can talk as freely 
as you choose.” 

“I thank you,” said Kunsch once more, 
putting his heels together and making his 
formal bow. “You to the utmost have 
with kindness overloaded me. One thing 
more. Can you concerning the London 
trains me inform?” 

Bob nodded, went out and closed the 
door. Then he deliberately did a thing 
utterly contrary to his ordinary habit of 
life and to his normal standards. He ran 
up-stairs to his mother’s room where stood 
an extension telephone, one of the compara- 
tively few in England, put in by his father 
some • years before. Conversation passing 
through the main transmitter and receiver 
below was, of course, perfectly audible in 
the receiver of the extension. 

, Bob closed the door of the room and 


A REGATTA DAY AT HENLEY 123 

stood for a moment before the receiver, 
debating the matter with himself. ‘‘Shall 
I deliberately overhear that conversation 
or not.^ I wouldn’t hesitate if I thought 
there was a burglar down there who might 
tell a confederate where he’d hidden his 
swag. And I believe these Mannheim chaps 
are at the bottom of the stealin’ of the 
cases. I made up my mind to that from 
what Jack said on the train and from the 
story he told Twomell. I believe I ’m doin’ 
the square thing in listenin’.” He sat down 
decisively before the telephone, quietly took 
off the receiver and held it to his ear. 

“The Mannheim Company this. Is it 
not so?” were the first words that reached 
him. The wrecked aviator had made a 
quick connection with London. 

“Yup,” came back an unmistakably Brit- 
ish voice. “Wot you want?” 

“Oh! It is the excellent Wilhelm, is it 
not?” asked Mr. Kunsch, in a propitia- 
tory tone. “This is Mr. Kunsch.” 


124 jack COLLERTON’S engine 

‘‘Umph! He did give me the right name, 
after all,” thought Bob to himself. 

• “Yup,” growled the voice. ‘‘This ’ere’s 
William, all right. Wot you done now? 
Bust that ’ere airship ag’in?” 

“It is to my very great misfortune, my 
dear Wilhelm,” remarked Mr. Kunsch very 
hesitatingly, “that to my great surprise 
the ship to act refused here in Henley. 
Can you to fix it manage? I will it leave 
here and come to London.” 

“I can if I have to,” replied William 
sulkily. “W’ere is it?” 

“At a place, ‘The Grange,’ I am told,” 
replied Kunsch. “You can at once come 
down?” 

“Yup,” growled William. “Oh, Mr. 
Kunsch!” 

“Yes, Wilhelm.” 

“That agent from the States come in 
last night, an’ he said he had the parcels he 
lost before, that he’d sent ’em straight 
ahead to you knew where, an’ he was goin’ 


A REGATTA DAY AT HENLEY 125 

there directly, an’ he ’d meet you there day 
after — day after to-morrow.” 

The listener’s heart throbbed wildly as 
he heard the words. 

‘^That he the parcels which he lost com- 
ing over he ’d found, and that he ahead had 
sent them and there would be!” exclaimed 
Kunsch jubilantly. ‘‘Donner-vetter! He is 
a great man! Wilhelm, tell Mr. Schwartz 
to buy tickets for himself and for me, and 
a compartment in his name on the nine 
o’clock express for Paris from Charing Cross 
Station, reserve at once. Then you here 
come. I will not here be, I go away imme- 
diately.” 

“Yup,” was the only reply that William 
made, and the conversation closed. 

Mr. Emil Kunsch stepped out into the 
long hall of the Grange, to find Mr. Robert 
Burne calmly examining his watch and a 
time-table. 

You can just catch a train, by hurrying,” 
said Bob. ‘‘And there’s an empty cab 


126 JACK COLLERTON^S ENGINE 

passing the drive now. Do you want me 
to whistle it, or will you wait.^” 

‘‘Vhistle, vhistle! I beg,” cried the Ger- 
man, losing his wh in his excitement. The 
whistle blew and the hansom speeded up 
the drive. 

Scarcely had the carriage stopped before 
Mr. Kunsch had jumped in. ‘‘To the 
station, qvick, double fare!” he called. 
The cabman turned his horse and sped 
away, while the German leaned out from 
the side of the cab, bowing farewells. 

The cab had not disappeared behind the 
shrubs and trees of the entrance before Bob 
was flying out of the back door, shouting 
for Jack. Five minutes had scarcely elapsed 
before the boys were hurrying up the walk 
towards the house, while Bob earnestly told 
his news and unfolded his plans. 

“You see,” he declared, “it’s evidently 
been the Mannheims who have been at the 
bottom of all the trouble. It must have 
begun when one of their men heard your 


A REGATTA DAY AT HENLEY 127 

conversation with Powers on the dock. 
He must have passed the word along to 
another of their men who was sailing on 
the Northumbria^ and at the same time he 
tried to keep you from gettin’ aboard. 
The man on the ship stole your cases to 
get the engine, and somehow or other he 
must have kept track of you in London, 
for apparently it was the same clever beggar 
who stole your cases out of the hansom 
that stole ’em on board ship.” 

‘^He evidently ran for the Continent just 
as soon as he got ’em, and left word for 
this chap Kunsch to follow. Now Kunsch 
leaves Charin’ Cross at nine o’clock to- 
night for Paris, to meet the chap who ’s got 
the cases. We don’t know where they ’re 
goin’ beyond Paris, but they do, and they 
know where the cases are. So we’ve got 
to keep close to them and find out from 
them just what we must do. Therefore the 
business of the Chairman and the Treasurer 
of the Board of Directors of the Collerton 


128 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

Engine Company is to sprint for the Dover- 
Calais express by an early train from Henley. 
We ’ll beat ’em yet. Personally, I ’m bettin’ 
on the Collerton Engine Company in this 
race. I ’m bettin’ the Mannheim Company 
can’t sprint for nuts. Think I ’m right, 
Jack.?” 

‘‘You bet your life you ’re right!” exclaimed 
Jack enthusiastically. “I was mighty afraid 
I ’d never see those cases again.” 

“Then it’s up to us to make mother 
see things our way,” said Bob. “That’s 
all.” 

Fortunately mother did see things Bob’s 
way. It’s a wise mother who knows how 
to put responsibility on her son’s shoulders. 
Only an hour behind the train that carried 
Mr. Emil Kunsch to London thundered the 
express that bore the two officials of the 
Collerton Engine Company to the metropo- 
lis, on their way to the Continent, and in 
hot pursuit of the missing cases. 


CHAPTER SIX 


A PHONOGRAPH ON THE DOVER-CALAIS 
EXPRESS 

The compartment in which the boys 
travelled up from Henley was full of merry- 
makers returning from their holiday, and 
there was no chance to talk. All the way 
Jack stared out of the window with unseeing 
eyes, trying to decide upon the next step 
more clearly. 

Once in London the two drove directly 
to Charing Cross, bought their tickets for 
the nine o’clock express, left their bags, 
and sauntered out to while away the time 
of waiting. 

‘‘Got any more line on things. Jack?” 
asked Bob as they strolled through the 
lighted streets. 

“No!” replied Jack slowly, as he halted 

9 


130 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

in front of a variety shop where the huge 
horns of some American phonographs thrust 
their brazen throats against the panes. 
Jack stood still, looking in at the window 
meditatively, with his hands deep in his 
pockets. Then he suddenly wheeled. 

“Yes! By thunder, I know what I’m 
going to do. Come on in here.” He dashed 
into the store with Bob somewhat reluctantly 
following. 

Once inside the shop. Jack made his 
way straight towards the clerk at the back. 

“Have you got a phonograph with a 
horn bent at right angles? Not the kind 
in the window that go straight out, but 
one that turns in a curve like this.” He 



drew a rude diagram. 

The clerk nodded. “Yes,” 


he said, “we ’ve got just what 


you want.” He bent down under a counter 
and brought out a big horn of the kind 
required. 


“That’s all right,” said Jack. “Now I 


A PHONOGRAPH ON THE EXPRESS 13 1 

want a clockwork, commercial machine for 
use with that horn, that will work both 
ways, — register on blank records any con- 
versation talked into the horn, or give out 
through the horn the contents of any filled 
record.” 

The clerk nodded again. ^‘Here’s a good 
type,” he said, bringing forward a phono- 
graph in its carrying case. 

‘‘Set it up,” said Jack. “I want to 
try it first.” 

The clerk obeyed, and Jack tried the in- 
strument thoroughly, speaking into it with 
various tones of voice from a whisper to 
an ordinary conversational pitch, then re- 
versing it and listening to the record through 
the attached ear-pieces or receivers. 

“That ’s all right,” he remarked at last. 
“Pll take it.” 

Bob had been kept perforce in the back- 
ground during the transaction, but now he 
could hold in no longer. He could not 
keep back a protest when he found himself 


132 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

laden with the big curving horn of the 
phonograph, while Jack was directing the 
packing of the rest of the instrument. 

“I suppose you think you have some 
reason for doin’ this,” he exclaimed. ‘‘But 
I ’d like to know what on earth you ’re 
luggin’ along all this plunder for. Here 
we’ve got our luggage down to the lowest 
possible point, and you go and buy a white 
elephant like this.” 

“Bob, my young friend,” said Jack, 
benevolently, “you may be the chairman 
of the Board of Directors and I be merely 
your ’umble and hobedient sarvint, but 
there are times when I am on to my job. 
I may have been a rank outsider, as you 
so choicely expressed it a short time ago, 
but now I ’ve got a great idea. I ’ll tell 
you in strict confidence, that I ’m buying 
this apparatus to settle the case of Messrs. 
Kunsch and Schwartz.” 

Reduced to silence by his associate’s 
eloquence. Bob held the huge horn with 


A PHONOGRAPH ON THE EXPRESS 133 

such patience as he could muster, while 
Jack purchased, in addition to the instru- 
ment itself, two dozen blank records. 

‘‘Believe I see,” Bob remarked as they 
left after a brief deliberation. 

“Perhaps you do and perhaps you don’t,” 
replied Jack enigmatically. 

“In short, Robert Burne, Esquire,” he 
went on, as he hailed a hansom, “I’m 
endeavoring to give you a run for your 
money.” 

Laden with their purchases, the boys 
started back to Charing Cross. 

“ Seriously now, I ’ll tell you what I must 
do,” said Jack gravely, as their cab turned. 
“It’s most essential to the working out 
of my plans to get a reserved compartment 
just behind that of our friends, Mr. Kunsch 
and Mr. Schwartz. Can you manage it?” 

‘‘Fancy so,” said Bob. “In fact, I’m 
rather sure I can. Luckily one of the porters 
at Charing Cross used to be a helper over at 
Eton. He ’s the chap I spoke to cornin’ out. 


134 jack COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

One I called Bill. He ’ll be waitin’ for us, 
you ’ll see, when we get back. Fancy he can 
put it right.” 

The cab swung in by the little tobac- 
conist’s shop at the gate of the station, 
and came to a stop before the broad walk. 

Bob jumped out. ‘‘Wait in the cab a 
minute, Jack,” he said. “I’ll be back im- 
mediately,” and he disappeared into the 
station. 

Jack sat waiting patiently, watching the 
arrivals and departures, the moving life of 
the station yard and of the Strand beyond. 
As he gazed, despite the excitement of the 
unwonted spectacle, a wave of home-sick- 
ness passed over him. If he could only 
hear from his father and know how things 
were going. If he could only have a word 
of sympathy or approval for his efforts. 
His thoughts reached across the sea, as 
if in a vain attempt to come into immediate 
contact. Yet there was no possible way 
in which communication could be effected. 


. A PHONOGRAPH ON THE EXPRESS 135 

He must play his part in this game of life 
alone, save for Bob’s helping hand, and 
the lad squared his shoulders ready for 
the coming struggle, as he turned his thoughts 
to the future rather than to the past. 

Jack’s meditations were swiftly broken 
in upon by Bob’s return with a porter in 
tow. Jack leaped out. 

‘^This isn’t Bill,” explained Bob, in a 
low voice. ‘‘He’s gone off to see to things. 
Says he can do it all right. This chap ’ll 
take our plunder here. Bill ’s got the 
bags.” 

The cabman paid, the two boys passed 
through the corridor and out into the 
train shed. They stood waiting for a mo- 
ment at the railing, before their familiar 
bags appeared in the hands of a stalwart, 
grinning porter. 

“ ’T is all roight, Mr. Burne,” said the 
newcomer, in a deep aside. “T’ train ’s 
made up and ’ll back in a minute loike. 
Keep t’oye on me.” 


136 JACK COLLERTON^S ENGINE 

‘‘Good for you, Bill,” said Bob. “Isn’t 
that the train now?” 

As the train backed in. Bill the porter 
went swiftly ahead, followed by the boys 
with their second attendant. Straight as 
for a mark he made for a “reserved” com- 
partment, opened the door and ushered 
them in. 

Their second porter stowed the phono- 
graph and the supplies and disappeared 
with his tip. Bill lingered. 

“Cost two p’und ten, Mr. Burne,” re- 
marked Bill, still grinning widely. 

“Here’s three sov. Bill,” answered Bob, 
handing over three golden sovereigns. 
“Worth it, if you ’re sure.” 

“Oi am,” said Bill, with a yet more 
capacious smile. “Thank you, sir.” He 
bowed and disappeared. 

“Now for some Sherlock Holmes work,” 
exclaimed Bob, as Jack settled himself. 
“I’m off to watch for Kunsch. Pull down 
your cap over your face, Jack, and keep 


A PHONOGRAPH ON THE EXPRESS 137 

your handkerchief to your chin. It won’t 
do any harm to be careful now. Don’t let 
any one in. We ’ve got this compartment 
reserved, and you can keep anybody out.” 

Minute after minute passed, while Jack 
sat in the dim light of the railway carriage 
lamps, gazing outward. The time of start- 
ing was perilously near. Three minutes 
only remained before the hour when he 
saw two men pass, one very stout and 
panting, the other long and wiry, looking 
much as the aeronaut looked in the air. 
They entered the compartment just ahead. 
Bob had not yet appeared, but just as 
the final call came, the door swung open 
and the missing youth jumped in. 

‘‘Righto,” he remarked joyously, in a 
low voice. “They’re here.” 

The train started as he spoke, and the 
two boys busied themselves with arranging 
their luggage. They had hardly finished 
when the guard passed and repassed on 
the running board, and Jack looked out 


138 JACK COLLERTON^S ENGINE 

to see the long line of the train ahead and 
behind their compartment speeding out 
through the night. The running board was 
empty, and the shifting lights from the win- 
dows were the only outward evidence of 
life. 

“Do you think the guard’ll be back, 
Bob?” asked Jack in a whisper. 

“No,” said Bob. “Most unlikely.” 

“Then get ready to put out these lights 
and stand by to help me to set up this 
phonograph so that the open bell of the 
horn will be just back of the compartment 
ahead.” 

Bob gave one stare, then a look of com- 
prehension spread over his face as, leaning 
forward, he gravely patted Jack’s head 
twice. Jack, meantime, was rapidly laying 
out his purchases on the seat. The warm 
night was most favorable to the scheme, 
for every window of the train was wide 
open. 

“I’ve got to get out on the running 


A PHONOGRAPH ON THE EXPRESS 139 

board for a minute,” said Jack, ^^so I can 
place things. I Ve got everything as I 
want it now, and I can pick things up In 
the dark. I had to learn that trick in 
some of my ascensions. Look sharp when 
I come back. There ’s no time to lose.” 

With a quick movement. Bob shut off 
the lights, while Jack, reaching out over 
the door, turned the handle and swung 
out on to the running board. The express 
was in the outskirts of London, and was 
thundering on at its full speed. Far ahead 
Jack could see the red glow from the engine 
shoot up swiftly, as the furnace door was 
opened and then shut. The lights beside 
the track shone dimly, and the shifting 
illumination from the car windows threw 
splotches of shifting light along the track 
beside him. The train at its high speed 
swayed and swung, but the boy’s nerves, 
steadied by his experiences above the clouds, 
held firm. He closed the carriage door, 
and leaned crouchingly forward toward the 


140 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

compartment just ahead. He caught the 
fumes of heavy cigar smoke as he reached 
the side, and heard the stroke of a match. 
Then a word reached him — ^ 

“Oh! They ’re talking German, are they,” 
said Jack to himself. “Can’t fool me that 
way. Here ’s where my long walks with 
old Herr Schmidt come into play. Now 
if you ’ll only go slow a minute or so, I ’ll 
have you phonographed all right,” he went 
on, apostrophizing the unconscious occu- 
pants of the carriage; “but it’s a harder 
job than I thought.” 

Jack swung quickly back into his own 
compartment and spoke to Bob in a low tone. 

“I thought I could rig the horn of the 
phonograph up and hold it there perma- 
nently, but it won’t work. I ’ve got to get 
out on the running board and hold the 
bell of the horn so close to their window 
that all the sounds of their conversation 
will reach it and be recorded. The right- 
angle bend of the horn will enable you to 


A PHONOGRAPH ON THE EXPRESS 14 1 

hold the box in the window of our own 
carriage. You take a strap off your Glad- 
stone bag, put it about your wrist, and 
I ’ll take the other end. I ’ll pull it for a 
signal to start and stop, one to start, two 
to stop. See? Otherwise we might lose 
the whole record. We’ll have to chance 
the guard. I don’t think they’ve started 
talking much yet.” 

“They met for the first time, since Kunsch 
left Henley, in the station. I ’m sure of 
that from the way they acted,” said Bob 
hurriedly. “I can hold the box all right, 
while you take care of the horn. I know 
how to run these things. Went down to 
Edison’s place one day while I was in 
the States, and found out all about ’em. 
Go ahead, but hang on tight. The Company 
can’t afford to lose you.” 

It was but brief work for Jack to make 
the final adjustments of the phonograph 
and to place the blank records where they 
could be easily reached. Then he swung out 


142 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

on to the running board once more, guided 
the bent horn through the window of their 
own compartment, and turned it towards 
the window of the compartment in front. 
There was a steady flow of guttural German 
from the two men. Jack turned his head 
from side to side in an attempt to find the 
direction which would give the best results 
with the phonograph’s horn, and finally 
decided it. The two within were still talk- 
ing about the action of the airship over 
Henley. That topic exhausted, the deeper 
voice exclaimed: “And now tell me of the 
cases?” Jack smiled an exultant smile and 
twitched the cord. He could just barely 
distinguish the sound of the turning of 
the mechanism above the noise of the train, 
but the higher tones of Schwartz had already 
taken up the tale, and the men within 
talked on, quite unsuspecting of any listener, 
natural or mechanical. 

As Jack guided the horn to its most 
effective place, raising the angle to a point 


A PHONOGRAPH ON THE EXPRESS 143 

where the sound waves from the wheels 
below would enter as little as possible, he 
blessed two peculiarities of the English 
railway, the perfect road-bed, which secured 
a noiselessness of running sufficient to make 
the conversation from within audible above 
the low undercurrent of sound from the 
train, and the provision made for the guard 
to safely traverse the running board at 
high speeds. That last provision gave him 
a good standing place and a safe rail through 
which he could pass his arm. 

On sped the train through culvert and 
under bridge, by darkly outlined hamlet and 
through lonely field. Once it thundered 
through a dark tunnel, where the smoke- 
burdened air filled Jack’s lungs till it cost 
an almost superhuman effort to hold back 
a burst of coughing. The tide of conver- 
sation rose and fell and rose again. Again 
and again Jack signalled Bob to stop or 
start until, at length, the story seemed nearly 
done, and Jack was straightening himself 


144 jack COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

to swing back again to his place, when sud- 
denly another word caught his attention, 
and he crouched once more, holding the 
horn with a weary hand. 

As he did so, the sound of an approach- 
ing train in the distance came to his ears. 
Far down the level track a huge eye seemed 
rushing towards him, coming nearer and 
yet nearer. Jack knew the danger of the 
powerful suction between two passing trains, 
and he took no chances. Rapidly pushing 
the horn of the phonograph back, he turned 
the handle, stepped inside, and shut the 
door carefully, just as the sound, becoming 
louder still, rose to its height with a roar 
and a rush of wind and the train was upon 
him. A glimpse of lighted windows, of 
occupants lying back upon the seats, of 
luggage vans and swaying interstices ; a 
final blast of eddying currents, and the 
train was by. The twinkling of the rear 
lights in the rapidly increasing distance 
marked its disappearance. 


I 


A PHONOGRAPH ON THE EXPRESS 145 

Five minutes more and Jack was satisfied. 
Carefully, with every muscle aching from 
the long strain, he thrust the horn back, 
and climbed inside to fall back upon the 
cushions. 

‘‘Think you’ve got it?” whispered Bob, 
excitedly. 

“Yes,” answered Jack wearily. “I got 
it. It’s all there. Wait till we can run 
it off later, and I ’ll tell you about it. I 
can’t now. I must sleep for a few minutes.” 

“Lucky you stopped when you did,” 
said Bob. “You were on the last blank 
record.” But he spoke to unheeding ears, 
Jack was fast asleep. 

By the time the train reached Dover, 
Bob had packed all the impedimenta safely, 
had relighted the lamps, awakened Jack, 
and was ready for departure. Bending over 
their luggage, the boys watched the two 
Germans descend from the train, and then 
followed the men at a safe distance, down 
the pier and on to the boat. Kunsch and 

10 


146 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

Schwartz went straight to a private cabin. 
Bob and Jack went forward on deck, and 
settled themselves for the trip across. 

“There are too many people round to 
talk now, Bob,’^ said Jack. “We’d better 
wait. What I want to know now is the 
shortest way to get to Lucerne.” 

“Righto,” answered Bob. “Lucerne ’s our 
next stoppin’ place, is it?” 

“Yes,” replied Jack. “Do you suppose 
we can get a time-table on board?” 

“Don’t need to,” said Bob. “You’re 
not the only forehanded beggar in this 
Company.” He reached into his hand-bag, 
and produced a Cook’s Continental time- 
table. 

“Got everything here,” he remarked. “All 
the trains everywhere. How to ask in 
French, German, and Italian for some of 
the things you want and more you don’t 
want; where the golf links on the Continent 
are, and when steamers ought to go. Now 
you want to go from Calais to Lucerne. 


A PHONOGRAPH ON THE EXPRESS 147 

If you’ll shut up for about ten minutes, 
I ’ll have it for you.” 

Jack sat in silence watching the boat 
ploughing across the Channel, quiet enough 
to-night to belie its unfortunate reputation. 
The lights of Dover had quite disappeared 
by now, and the lights of Calais had hardly 
come in view. At length Bob spoke. 

‘‘Here you are,” he said. “We left Lon- 
don at 9.00, reached Dover at 10.52 p. m. 
We should leave Calais at 1.50 a. m., and 
reach the Gare du Nord in Paris at 5.50 a. m. 
Then we can take either the 8.45 a. m. 
or the 9.09 A. M. from the Gare de I’Est 
for Lucerne via Bale, arriving in Lucerne 
at either 8.19 p. m. or at 11.08 p. m. By 
the way of Bale, Lucerne is three hundred 
eighty-five miles from Paris. Now which 
train do we take.^” 

“Either one’ll do,” answered Jack, lower- 
ing his voice. “They’re intending to stay 
over in Paris a day, anyway, and the whole 
bunch of ’em are going to meet in Lucerne 


148 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

day after to-morrow evening. I guess we ’d 
better take the 8.45, though. There ’s noth- 
ing like being a little ahead instead of a 
little behind time.” 

“That’s settled then,” said Bob, with a 
yawn. “Let’s go up and look forward. 
Calais lights should be dead ahead now.” 

Far in the distance shone the harbor 
lamps of the old French-English city — the 
last possession of England on French soil. 
Swiftly the racing turbines cut the distance 
down till the pier was reached, and Jack 
and Bob stepped out on Continental soil. 
Far more than before Jack felt himself an 
alien, a stranger, as he heard about him the 
swift French of the bystanders, the broken 
English of the porters, and saw the slouchy 
uniforms of the gendarmes and the loose 
blouses of the custom-house officials, so 
different from the trim Bobbies and 
Tommies of the London streets. This for- 
eign land seemed thousands of miles re- 
moved from the shores they had left a 


-?5i,U . 

A PHONOGRAPH ON THE^ EXPRESS 149 

couple of hours before. Even the buildings, 
little as he could see of them in the dark- 
ness, seemed of a different character. 

The boys were lucky enough to get a 
two-berth lit saloUy or sleeping-car compart- 
ment, as Jack put it, and here Jack made 
his first acquaintance with that necessity 
of Continental travel, the supplement, when 
they paid thirteen francs extra fare for the 
use of the berths. 

Neither of the boys knew much that 
transpired between Calais and Paris. Jack 
looked out at one unexplained stop to see 
a quaint farmhouse, guarded by stiff rows 
of stately poplars, and a field flooded with 
light from the late rising moon. Again he 
looked out on a station platform, brilliant 
with electric lights, and read upon the 
sign the word ‘^Amiens.” He knew no 
more of the journey till the train stopped 
in the long bare terminal of the Gare du 
Nord. 

‘‘Now,” said Bob, stretching himself, “I ’m 


150 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

going to give you a Cook’s tour through 
Paris. Stir your stumps and we’ll wire 
mother and Twomell that we ’re leaving 
for Lucerne, take a taximetre, breakfast in 
the Place de I’Opera, motor by the Louvre, 
through the Place de la Concorde, by Notre 
Dame, and back to the Gare de I’Est in 
time for the 8.45.” 

‘‘I’m agreeable,” said Jack. “You can’t 
pile in too much for me. I wish I had a 
whole day in Paris, though. Gardner gave 
father and me some bully letters of intro- 
duction to some of the Continental Aero 
Club people. To Durand and Jacquelle, 
to Erholdt, and, as Twomell mentioned, 
a cracking good letter to the biggest one 
of the bunch, old Mettelin.” 

“Rippin’l” remarked Bob. “If you get 
a chance anywhere to present that letter, 
take me along. I ’d like well to meet the 
man who ’s built the best dirigible ever 
constructed, and done the best work in 
the air; but now let’s attack our program.” 


' A PHONOGRAPH ON THE EXPRESS 15 1 

They attacked It and they did it all. 
They breakfasted at one of the window 
tables of the Cafe de la Paix, drove down the 
Boulevards, by the great church of the Ma- 
deleine, stopped for a moment in the Place 
de la Concorde, drove through the broad 
avenue des Champs Elysees, passed the Arc 
de Triomphe de I’Etoile, and skirted the 
Seine with its thronging busy water traffic 
and its unsurpassed bridges. They called to 
mind the splendors of the French Court and 
the horrors of the Revolution, as they passed 
the long gray walls of the Louvre, looking 
down on the sunny river and the smiling 
gardens of the Tuileries, whete white-capped 
bonnes chattered among their infant charges 
on the spot where the Swiss guard gave 
their lives. They even peeped for a moment 
within Notre Dame, and marvelled at the 
stately twin towers, before they drove station- 
wards. They did all that, and they got the 
8.45 for Lucerne from the Gare de TEst. 

The boys were lucky again in getting a 


152 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

compartment to themselves. They had 
scarcely settled themselves when Bob ex- 
claimed: “Now for the phonograph.” The 
train ran light that morning and the com- 
partments on either side were vacant, so 
a rehearsal of the conversation seemed safe. 
Jack closed doors and windows, while Bob 
unpacked the phonograph, two sets of ear- 
pieces and the filled records. 

The boys adjusted the ear-pieces, and 
Jack started the mechanism. Bob sat ex- 
pectantly for a moment while the preliminary 
rattle of the machine and the steady sound 
of the train came to his ears. Then came 
an opening sentence in German. 

“Oh! Pshaw!” said Bob, leaning back. 
“They’re talking in German, and I don’t 
understand a word.” 

Jack threw off the mechanism, put the 
record at its beginning once more, and 
turned to Bob. 

‘‘Luckily I do understand it,” he said. 
“You let me run the records off, and then 


A PHONOGRAPH ON THE EXPRESS 153 

I ’ll condense all the information and give 
it to you.” 

‘‘Righto,” answered Bob, and he leaned 
back comfortably. Jack picked up the ear- 
pieces, and heard the story which they told. 
Again the steady beat of the train deepened 
through culverts, lightened among the open 
fields, reechoed as it was flung back by house 
walls, and roared through tunnels. Again 
in the far distance sounded an approaching 
train, whose rattling reverberations rose 
gradually to a crescendo of tremendous 
volume, and then faded away to a diminu- 
endo, lost at last in the repeated steady 
pulsations of their own train. And through 
it all the conversation went steadily on, 
apparently a tale at first, later a discus- 
sion. As the last record ended. Bob turned 
to Jack. 

“Ready now?” he asked. 

“Not just yet,” answered Jack. “I want 
to go over it once more.” 

Bob sat for a few moments watching 


154 jack collerton^s engine 

Jack’s intent face darken and grow grim, 
as he heard the tale of the phonograph. 
Then he idly picked up a copy of the Paris 
edition of the New York Herald, which 
Jack had bought as they came through the 
station. As he scanned it, one paragraph 
especially caught his eye and, as Jack laid 
down his ear-pieces and stopped the phono- 
graph, he spoke. 

“We may have a chance to meet Mettelin 
after all. This paper says he ’s still at 
Lucerne.” 

“That’s good,” said Jack abstractedly. 
“But now listen to this. The story of the 
phonograph still leaves us in a pretty pre- 
carious situation.” 


CHAPTER SEVEN 

BOB BURNE’s first APPEARANCE AS AN 
AVIATOR AT LUCERNE 

“It seems there are four of ’em in this 
business,” said Jack, scowling. ‘‘All our 
trouble began when I was such a fool as 
to tell George Powers about our plans on 
the pier in New York. There are two 
American agents, the fellow who tried to 
keep me off the boat and another who 
crossed with us. I made that much out, 
but I don’t know their last names. They 
used first names throughout in talking 
about them. I can’t tell for sure just how 
the second chap, whose first name is Carl, 
by the way, stole the cases on the boat. 
The second time, though, is all straight. 
Schwartz told the whole story to Kunsch 
with great gusto, and they chuckled over 


156 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

it well. When we left the Temple this 
fellow Carl, who came over with us, heard 
your last words to me, saw us, and trailed 
me in a cab. When the fog closed in he 
got out, walked by my cab and, at the 
moment the chance offered, stole the cases. 
Simplest thing in the world. When this 
rascal Carl was sure he had the engines all 
safe, he telephoned the office to have Schwartz 
and Kunsch meet him in Lucerne day after 
to-morrow. They ’re going to meet another 
fellow called Heinrich there. I don’t think 
this fourth man is in the plot. From some 
things they said I ’m inclined to think he 
is n’t. They ’re going to put in our engine 
as their own, if it works out better than 
the one they have now. They ’re bound not 
to take any chances on that twenty-five 
thousand pounds. I rather guess we’ll be 
on hand in Lucerne, and take a share in 
the game.” 

“Fancy we can get in on this, all right,” 
said Bob, grinning. “It’s going to be a 


BOB BURNE AS AN AVIATOR 157 

good fight. What you going to do with 
the phonograph now? Throw it out of the 
window?’’ 

‘‘No, siree,” answered Jack emphatically. 
“I had a lot more in my mind in getting 
these records than just hearing what they 
had to say. I may want to jail those 
fellows, and the records would be invalu- 
able in a court of law.” 

“Do you know,” remarked Bob, with a 
look of owlish gravity, “sometimes you show 
signs of almost human intelligence. If I 
ever have to resign as Chairman of the Board 
of Directors, I ’ll consider you — for an office 
boy,” he ended scoffingly. 

“You will, will you?” exclaimed Jack 
forcibly. “You just wait, that’s all. One 
of these days I ’ll get you up in a dirigible 
and settle your case there. I ’ll keep you 
up in the air till you beg for mercy. Just 
you wait,” he ended menacingly. 

“If I wasn’t too sleepy, I’d settle you 
for tuppence,” responded Bob, with a mighty 


158 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

yawn. ‘‘But I’ve got to take a nap now. 
I ’ll attend to you later.” 

Hardly were the words out of his mouth 
before he fell asleep, while Jack, after a 
few futile attempts to follow his example, 
gave his attention to the passing spectacle. 

Out through the fertile fields, by wav- 
ing meadows and vineyard covered slopes, 
through a land of enchantment, sped the 
train. The sturdy peasants in blouse and 
sabots, the women in the fields, the way- 
side crosses and the occasional old chateaux 
crowning lofty eminences gave wonderfully 
colored pictures of “the pleasant land of 
France.” The long course luncheon in the 
trim dining-car, with the unhurried service, 
broke the steady movement at midday. 
Five forty-five p. m. saw the boys in Bale, 
with its brief inspection by the Swiss cus- 
toms, and sunset was near as they sped 
through the green ravines and sloping hills 
of the Swiss country between Bale and 
Lucerne. 


BOB BURNE AS AN AVIATOR 159 

They had gathered their belongings for 
departure when Bob cried: “There’s Pila- 
tus!” and Jack leaned forward to see the 
shoulder of a cloud-capped mountain lifting 
far above him. Scarcely had he looked 
his fill, when Bob called again: “There’s 
the Vierwaldstatter See, the Lake of the 
Four Forest Cantons,” and a blue lake rip- 
pling in the last gold of the setting sun met 
his view. On they swept and drew in to 
the station of Lucerne. 

“Hotel de I’Europe for us,” said Bob. 
“It’s farther out of town, but it’s got a 
great view of the lake, and we can eat on 
the terrace. We ’ve been over here two 
summers and I know Switzerland fairly 
well.” 

Rattling over the bridge by the quay 
that edges the long front of the Schweit- 
zerhof, past the Kursaal, and up the road 
they drove, stopping by the end of the 
little tram line at a garden-bordered, white 
hotel, which looked over the lake towards 


i6o JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

Pilatus on the right and towards the Rigi 
on the left. The night had shut in as they 
arrived, and, wearied from their long jour- 
ney, they spent little time in preparing for 
bed. 

The next morning was clear and beauti- 
ful. Breakfast over, the boys strolled out 
into the lounge, where Bob picked up the 
little morning paper. He read it idly for 
a moment, and then gave a sudden start 
of attention. 

“Here, Jack,” he called. “Here’s an 
airship proposition for you.” He rapidly 
translated the French of the brief item 
before him. 

“ ‘Herr Mettelin has not as yet been 
able to make any of the long trips planned 
for his dirigible, owing to the illness of the 
operator who controls the engine. He has 
sent to Paris for another operator, and will 
begin his series of ascensions as soon as 
one arrives.’ ” 

“There’s a chance for you, old chap, if 


BOB BURNE AS AN AVIATOR i6i 


you wanted it,” continued Bob. ‘‘How’d 
you like a shot at being Mettelin’s operator?” 
He handed the paper over to his comrade, 
who read it eagerly. 

“Wouldn’t I like to try Mettelin’s diri- 
gible, though!” cried Jack. “Nothing I’d 
love to do so much. I don’t really see why 
I shouldn’t go down and see if I can do 
anything,” he went on slowly. “There may 
be something I can do, and I imagine we 
may have to wait round here to-day.” 

“ I ’m with you,” said Bob briefly. “ Come 
on.” 

The Schweitzerhof was gay with a cosmo- 
politan throng that morning, as French, 
Russians, Germans, Italians, Greeks, Hun- 
garians, English, and Americans chattered 
in their diverse tongues. Here and there 
might be seen the deep, red-brown face 
and rugged form which proved the Alpine 
climber; but these types are rare; they 
belonged in the higher Alps. Most of the 
crowd here were pleasure seekers, whose 


11 


1 62 JACK COLLERTON^S ENGINE 

Alpine climbing was done chiefly on the 
mountain railways. 

The two boys went to the gorgeously 
liveried concierge and asked for Herr Mette- 
lin. The pompous official sounded a gong, 
a page appeared, and led them to the suite. 
Mettelin himself answered the summons to 
the door. Jack had a swift impression of 
an erect, soldierly figure, a frank, open 
countenance, and the clear eye and weather- 
beaten face of the sportsman, the type 
which persists on land or above it. 

‘‘Yes?” said Herr Mettelin inquiringly, 
in precise English, as he recognized his 
visitor’s race. 

“I am John Collerton, and this is my 
friend Robert Burne,” said Jack, intro- 
ducing himself. “I have a letter of intro- 
duction to you from my friend, Mr. Gardner, 
of the American Aero Club. It is for my 
father and myself, but my father did not 
come across with me.” He handed the 
letter to the aviator. 


BOB BURNE AS AN AVIATOR 163 

A quick change flashed over Mettelin’s 
face as he heard Gardner’s name. ‘‘Ach, 
so!” he cried. “My good friend Gardner! 
I have not seen him for almost a year, since 
I dined with him in London last autumn.” 
He raised the flap of the envelope, read 
the letter swiftly and looked up, smiling. 
“Pray sit down, gentlemen,” he said cor- 
dially. “I understand from Mr. Gardner’s 
letter, Mr. Collerton, that you have had 
no small share in this great game of ours of 
conquering the air.” 

“I have had some experience,” answered 
Jack modestly. “I’ve made forty ascen- 
sions, six of them at night. I can qualify 
by the rules of any one of the Aero clubs. 
I acted as operator for Mr. Gardner during 
thirty ascensions.” 

“Ach, so!” said Mettelin in surprise. 
“You have begun young. You must have 
much to do with engines to be able to 
control Mr. Gardner’s.” 

“I have,” said Jack. “I’ve been inter- 


164 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

ested in engines ever since I can remember. 
Engine building is my father’s business. 
That’s really one part of my errand this 
morning. I wanted to give you my letter 
of introduction, but I wanted also to offer 
to serve as your operator to-day if you 
wished. I have one day here, which is 
at your service.” 

Herr Mettelin hesitated. “If you know 
enough to serve, I should be glad indeed to 
have you. But you must pardon me if 
I question you somewhat closely.” He 
paused. 

“That’s all right, Herr Mettelin,” an- 
swered Jack. “I certainly should not want 
to go up in a dirigible with any man who 
did n’t know his business. Ask all the ques- 
tions you care to, and I will answer all I 
can. 

“I shall be most glad if you do know 
enough to help me,” said Mettelin cor- 
dially. “I am wholly at a loss else. It 
is most important that I make an ascent 


BOB BURNE AS AN AVIATOR 165 

under the special conditions which prevail 
to-day. Everything is right, and there is 
none to help me. My operator, as you 
probably know, is sick, and I have heard 
nothing from Paris. 

"‘Now if you do not object,’’ he said 
once more, “I will begin to ask you con- 
cerning your knowledge of aviation,” and 
he began a rapid-fire series of searching 
questions, that explored the whole domain 
of airship construction and operation. 

Bob, seated in a corner, watched the 
progress of the examination with amused 
and interested eyes. Swift as volleying 
tennis balls sped question and answer. Jack 
was hardly ever at a loss, save where some 
technical question had a nomenclature un- 
known to him, and brought up a difficulty 
quickly cleared when he found out what 
was meant. 

Insensibly the examination passed into 
a discussion between equals concerning vari- 
ous aeronautic matters, a discussion which 


1 66 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

lasted until Mettelin, with a start, pulled 
his watch from his pocket and exclaimed: 

‘‘It is full time to go! Your friend can 
come, too, if he will hold himself as we 
direct. Come, we must hasten to the shed ! ” 

There was no further question of Jack’s 
ability to act. That was taken for granted. 

Bob, overjoyed at the prospect of an 
ascent, followed the absorbed pair as they 
hurried out towards the lake. Apparently, 
in the interest of the proposed ascension, 
Jack had forgotten his immediate errand 
at Lucerne; but in reality the presentation 
of his letter of introduction to Herr Mettelin 
had been deliberate. The path ahead was 
still fraught with unknown dangers, and 
the acquaintance of the great aeronaut was 
worth the time it took to secure it, even 
though there were but few hours to spare 
before Kunsch and Schwartz might be 
expected in Lucerne. 

But all deliberation was cast to the winds 
now, in view of the coming ascent. The 


BOB BURNE AS AN AVIATOR 167 

passion for traversing the air, which had 
overmastered man since the earliest times, 
was full upon him. 

A short walk towards the shores of the 
lake brought them to an enclosure, inside 
which loomed the huge balloon shed, a 
tent-like structure of bare boards. Out 
from the end towards the lake peered a 
huge inflated balloon, looking like nothing 
so much as the bullet of a cartridge ex- 
panded to an incredible size. Its coating, 
colored a golden yellow to absorb as little 
heat as possible, gave still more vividness 
to the resemblance, and the square ends 
of the shed, hiding the other end, cut off 
the bullet like the end of a cartridge. 

‘‘I had everything made ready this morn- 
ing,” explained Herr Mettelin, politely, turn- 
ing to Bob, “as I did not know but that 
Fortune might be as kind to me as she has 
proved in sending Mr. Collerton here.” 

Bob nodded without speaking, for all 
his attention was consumed in the interest 


1 68 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

of the scene and the prospect of the coming 
trip. The trio went rapidly through the 
small crowd before the gate, watching for 
the possible ascension. Two Germans raised 
a cry of ^^Hoch, hoch, hoch, Mettelin!^^ 
A few others joined in and they were past. 

Once inside the gate, Mettelin turned, 
bowed politely, and then proceeded directly 
towards the shed. Just before the entrance 
stood a group of instruments. Herr Mette- 
lin and Jack stepped to them, read the 
records carefully, and then the aeronaut 
turned to speak to one of the workmen. 

Jack returned to Bob. ‘‘What are those 
things?” asked Bob. 

“Oh, they’re anemometers that show the 
velocity of the wind, wind gauges, and tell- 
tales to show its course, recording ther- 
mometers and barometers which give the 
record of the last twenty-four hours as 
regards temperature and pressure,” answered 
Jack. “You can’t have too much infor- 
mation about the condition of the atmos- 


BOB BURNE AS AN AVIATOR 169 

phere when you go sailing in it. Every- 
thing is as it should be to-day, however. 
It’s a bully day for an ascension. But 
come on in. Here comes Mettelin.” 

Within the shed, and swaying slightly 
at its ropes, stood the great flying fish. 
Bob could see the general shape of the 
airship clearly now, and recognized that 
the front end tapered toward the rear. 
Both ends were pointed, and fins, much like 
the fins of a fish, stood out from the sides. 
Between the pointed ends stretched the 
long cylinder filled with the inflating gas. 
Below the cylinder was a ladder-like frame 
of approximately the same length as the 
balloon above, which ended in two pro- 
pellers, that at the stern being much larger 
than the one at the bow. 

Just forward of the stern was the pilot’s 
station, with wheels and levers not unlike 
those of an automobile. In front of that 
were two rests for passengers where they 
might lie along the frame, and just aft of 


170 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

the curve of the ladder frame of the bow 
was the tiny engine, with its petrol tanks 
and the place of the engineer. 

In front of the engine were what seemed 
to be two box kites placed across the frame, 
making the whole lower part the shape of 
a cross. Bob had plenty of time for obser- 
vation, as Herr Mettelin had departed on an- 
other errand, and he and Jack were left alone. 

The boys had waited but a brief time in 
the shed when Herr Mettelin came striding 
towards them. “Now, Mr. Collerton,” he 
exclaimed, “I am ready for you to try 
out the engine.” 

Jack moved forward to the tiny engine 
on the framework, and examined it search- 
ingly in every part. Then he filled the 
automatic lubricator, and once more went 
over every part of the engine in detail. 
“This is your own province, Mr. Coller- 
ton,” remarked Herr Mettelin, “so I shall 
not interfere. If there is anything you 
wish to ask, pray do so.” 


BOB BURNE AS AN AVIATOR 171 

‘‘Not a thing,” answered Jack, rising. 
“Now I’ll start her up.” He turned on 
the gasoline, adjusted the carbureter, put 
his engine on the neutral, and bent forward 
to crank up. Easily and readily the engine 
responded with a low, steady chug-chug. 
Jack bent his utmost energy to listening 
for any irregularity of sound, but there was 
none. At last he rose, throwing off the 
power. 

“All right, Herr Mettelin,” he said cheer- 
fully. “That ’s a good engine.” It was 
only with the greatest difficulty that he 
restrained himself from saying that, good 
as it was, it was far inferior to his own. 

“Then we will start,” said Herr Mettelin. 
“Mr. Burne, when we get aboard, you take 
your place here,” he pointed to the pas- 
senger’s position. “Cling on by the straps, 
and lie flat on the cushions. Do not move, 
whatever happens, unless I tell you to. 
You are the scout who is to report the 
conditions of the enemy’s forces. Mr. Col- 


172 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

lerton and I are too busy with the dirigi- 
ble to report what is going on below, so 
we shall expect a full account from you of 
all you have seen, when we get back.” 

The balloon came swaying from the shed, 
the three took their places, and there was 
a moment’s pause. 

“Ready, Mr. Collerton?” asked Herr 
Mettelin. “Aye, aye, sir,” answered Jack. 

There was a hoarse command in German, 
a sudden movement among the surrounding 
workmen, a medley of cheers in various 
tongues from the little crowd outside, and 
Bob, looking downward, saw first the earth 
and then the lake, apparently falling away 
from him. Strangely enough, though he 
expected to be dizzy, the feeling of vertigo 
did not come over him. He had closed 
his eyes as they rose, but found himself 
able immediately to open them again, and 
measure conditions accurately. 

Now they were skimming along, perhaps 
a hundred feet above the surface of the 


BOB BURNE AS AN AVIATOR 173 

lake. The distance to mother earth seemed 
perilously great. Bob raised his head and 
looked forward. There was Jack, bending 
lovingly over the engine, a piece of waste 
in his hand, whistling ragtime in a peace- 
ful, melodious fashion. He looked care- 
fully behind, and saw Herr Mettelin at 
the steering gear, looking as quiet and placid 
as though he were running an automobile 
at ten miles an hour on a deserted boule- 
vard. 

“Humph!’’ murmured Bob to himself. 
“If Germany and America are as cool as 
that, I guess Britain won’t be behindhand. 
Three cheers for England!” 

The first uneasiness over. Bob quite gave 
way to the fascination of the trip. They 
were sweeping over the Lake of the Four 
Forest Cantons with the firm clean sweep 
of the swallow. Below, the water showed 
the passing of their shadow, and the decks 
of the occasional lake steamers showed a 
sea of upturned, interested faces. Now and 


174 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

then they passed fishermen, intent upon 
their task, — and all the time they had 
before them the wonderful deep blue of 
the lake on this perfect summer day. 

Bob turned his head and looked back 
at Lucerne, whose towers and villas, crowned 
by the sharp double spire of the church, 
stood out in relief against the deep green 
of the slope. Pilatus mounted at the right, 
its cone outlined sharply against the clear 
sky. Beyond Pilatus, far away in the 
distance above some lower hills, stood out 
the mighty battlements of distant moun- 
tains, and gradually the Monch, the Eiger, 
and the Jungfrau came into view. 

These three were old friends of Bob’s, 
but they had a very different appearance 
here from the nearer view from Interlaken, 
with which he was most familiar. Straight 
ahead, the Burgenstock, the Buochser Horn 
and the Stanser Horn rose majestically, 
while to the left mounted the lower slopes 
of the Rigi. 


BOB BURNE AS AN AVIATOR 175 

The airship was rising now. Bob did 
not quite understand why, but as it rose 
he got a new impression of the lake. Now it 
looked as it does from the Rigi, a great shin- 
ing cross sunk between bounding, sloping 
walls of green dotted with villages. They 
had reached the second narrows by Brun- 
nen keeping straight ahead when Herr 
Mettelin swung on a wide circle and started 
to the left. Back over the lake they sped, 
along the shores and up one arm of the 
lake, across by Greppen, and up to the 
top of the bay. There they swung once 
more, and came down along the shore 
nearest Lucerne, at a distance of about 
thirty feet from the ground. 

As they ran towards Lucerne, the diri- 
gible flew slowly above the land, following 
the road that curves along the shore. Bob, 
already grown accustomed to the novel 
experience, was idly watching the white 
stretch below, when a scene of trouble 
ahead met his view. 


176 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

An automobile with a broken wheel and 
fender was tipped half over, and three 
men in dust-covered clothes were standing 
beside it, while a fourth was working under 
the car. 

With a start of amazement. Bob recog- 
nized two of the men. They were Schwartz 
and Kunsch. In their excitement, these 
two were talking in German, while the 
third man, the stranger, was answering 
in English. As they swept over, the men 
paid no attention in their gesticulating 
wrath to the dirigible above, and Bob 
heard one sentence in shrill English: 

‘‘But Heinrich waits with them at Meir- 
ingen for instructions, I tell you.” 

Then they were left behind, and Bob, 
looking backward, saw them suddenly dis- 
cover the car overhead, and look up with 
open mouths. All the way back he pon- 
dered that sentence. 

They had scarcely descended at the 
landing stage and made fast, when Bob, 



With a start of amazement, Bob recognized two of the men 

Page 1^/6 



BOB BURNE AS AN AVIATOR 177 

stretching his cramped limbs, hurried for- 
ward to Jack. 

‘'See here, Jack,” he said, “get out of this 
and come with me the first instant you can. 
I Ve got a new clew.” Jack nodded silently, 
for Mettelin was coming towards them. 

“Now, gentlemen,” he said, “for a good 
dinner, the best the Schweitzerhof can 
give. I owe a thousand thanks. It is the 
best ascension yet. No engineer or pas- 
senger could have done better.” 

“I’m no end obliged for the invitation, 
Herr Mettelin,” said Jack. “But may I 
wait till I see our mail before deciding? 
Something may occur to prevent.” 

“Certainly,” answered Mettelin courte- 
ously. “There is nothing more to do here. 
My workmen can do all. Will you accom- 
pany me back?” 

Out they went into the street and down 
to the town where, at the end of the little 
alley near the bank, where the mail came 
in, Mettelin left them. 


12 


1 78 JACK COLLERTON^S ENGINE 

‘‘I’ll let you know whether we can accept 
or not in half an hour, Herr Mettelin,” 
said Jack, as they parted. 

As they waited for their mail. Bob hastily 
told his story. “So Heinrich is probably 
at Meiringen with the cases,” he said, as 
he ended. Just then the clerk handed out 
two telegrams addressed to Bob. The first 
said: “Good luck. Mother.” The second 
said: “Look out for Emil Kunsch, Wil- 
helm Schwartz, Carl Schmidt, and Hein- 
rich Erheim. Signed Twomell.” 

As he read the words. Jack stuffed the 
telegram into his pocket, turned, and started 
on the run towards the railroad station. 
“Where on earth you goin’?” asked Bob, 
hurrying after him. 

“Meiringen by the first train,” answered 
Jack briefiy. 

As the two boys tore over the bridge to 
the station, the big clock was just pointing 
to the hour of five. Jack stopped for 
nothing till he reached the ticket office. 


BOB BURNE AS AN AVIATOR 179 

where he cried: ‘‘Next train to Meiringen, 
when?” 

In his excitement he had quite forgotten 
his German, but the ticket seller, used to 
rapid interpretation of many tongues and 
of much facial expression, hurled back an 
answer, Zwei . minuten^'^^ threw a ticket 
across the counter and pointed to a door. 
Jack threw down a Napoleon, took back 
a handful of change, and rushed out to 
the train shed, followed by Bob. The 
train was just starting, as Jack jumped 
on the steps of the car. He stood breath- 
less for a moment, and then called to Bob, 
who was running slowly along beside the 
train. 

“You watch developments here, make 
things right with Mettelin, and join me 
when you can. I ’ll be J. Cope. J. C-O-P-E, 
at Meiringen.” 

“Righto!” said Bob, falling back as the 
train increased its speed. 

Jack had entered the car, when he heard 


i8o JACK COLLERTON^S ENGINE 

his name yelled from behind. He leaned 
out, to see his friend racing madly after 
him. As Bob saw Jack’s head, he slowed 
down. . 

‘‘What ’s last name of beggar at Meiringen 
er — telegram?” he puffed. 

“Erheim,” shouted Jack. Bob nodded, 
stopped, and slowly plodded back. 


CHAPTER EIGHT 

JACK COLLERTON TEMPORARILY BECOMES 
J. COPE 

Jack had taken the 4.02 train from Lu- 
cerne for Meiringen by way of Briinig. He 
was due to arrive in Meiringen at 7.02, and 
the lad settled down to his three-hour run 
with a quiet determination to meet the im- 
mediate future as it came. He had decided 
to try for the recovery of the cases in accord- 
ance with conditions as he found them, yet, 
as he thought of resorting to process of law, 
he remembered, with a start, that he had 
left his passports and credentials in his 
trunk at Lucerne. 

His letter of credit and his money were 
safely in his pocket, however, and with a 
sufficient supply of money he felt that he 
could go anywhere. The time was grow- 


1 82 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE ^ 

ing shorter and shorter, though. Danger- 
ously short, indeed! Three days only were 
left before the hour of final entry for the 
competition. Then the gates would be 
closed against him. He must find the 
engine and get to Territet in three days! 

Higher and higher the train climbed 
through wooded ravines, by rude and 
weather-blackened chalets, by winding road 
and rushing wayside stream. Jack, whose 
unusual power of absorption in his work, 
when the time came for absorption, was 
equalled only by his power of freeing him- 
self from his cares, when the time came for 
freedom, let the beauty and strangeness 
of the scene enter through every filament 
of his being. Cattle, clustered at the rude, 
strangely shaped fences, stared in wonder 
at the passing train; a marshy valley showed 
a slow, winding river; sturdy bridges led 
to hamlets where the village church, with 
its pointed tower, stood on a little eminence; 
Sarnen with its public buildings was passed, 


JACK COLLERTON BECOMES J. COPE 183 

and then up a steadily rising gradient they 
ran to Giswyl. Jack realized that the 
climb to the Alps had really begun when 
he felt the shaking car take the rack and 
pinion of the mountain railway. 

Then came a steady rise over rushing 
torrents and through dark tunnels till Brii- 
nig was reached, where Jack was glad to 
stretch his legs during the short halt. As 
the train ran slowly up the incline, small 
boys and girls ran beside it offering for sale 
fruit and dried grasses, and more than once 
Swiss maidens were seen selling the dried 
Edelweiss. 

Jack, watching the station at Briinig, 
saw the station master hurry out at the 
very moment of departure and hand a 
telegram to the guard. ‘‘Orders of some 
kind, I suppose,” he said to himself, and 
thought no more about it till he saw the 
official bring in the telegram and show it 
to each passenger. When it reached him 
he looked at the address. 


184 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

‘‘J. Cope. On 4.02 train from Lucerne 
to Meiringen.” 

He had started to shake his head when 
he suddenly recalled his last words to Bob. 
‘‘Yes, I’m Mr. Cope,” he said, and the 
guard, easily satisfied, handed over the 
envelope. Jack tore it open eagerly and 
read the missive. 

Lucerne. 

J, Cope : Have wired Erheim to deliver 
goods to you on arrival of train at Meiringen. 
Proceed directly from there through Gletsch 
and Brigue to Territet. Will meet you there. 

R. B. Schmidt. 

For a puzzled instant Jack looked at the 
telegram. Could some strange trick of 
chance be sending a real J, Cope to Meir- 
ingen in the interests of the Mannheim 
Company? Schmidt was in all probability 
the third man in the party near the lake. 
He could hardly have reached Lucerne, 
however, in time to send this telegram. 
But R. B.! Those were Bob’s initials! 


JACK COLLERTON BECOMES J. COPE 185 

A sudden flash broke through the clouds, 
and Jack, throwing his head back, burst 
into a fit of laughter which quite scandalized 
a gold-spectacled Herr Professor and his 
fat, sedate wife who were sitting opposite 
and peacefully viewing the valley. 

Everything was clear now. It was the 
fertile brain of the Chairman of the Board 
of Directors of the Collerton Engine Com- 
pany which had produced that telegram. 
It would simplify matters greatly if the 
man at Meiringen only believed his wire to 
contain real orders from the real Schmidt. 
Jack leaned back in his seat and gave way 
to a train of thought which held him fast 
till, at the shout of ‘‘Meiringen,” he jumped 
lightly to his feet and was on the platform 
the moment his car stood still. It was 
just 7.02. The train was exactly on time. 

Directly before him on the station plat- 
form was a short, dark-bearded man stand- 
ing between two canvas-covered cases of 
the same general shape as the beloved, lost 


1 86 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

engine cases. He was eagerly scanning the 
faces of the alighting passengers. 

As he saw Jack he picked up his burden. 

‘‘Mr. Cope?” he asked. Jack nodded. 
“I knew you from Herr Schmidt’s tele- 
graphed description. So glad I am,” went 
on the stranger, thrusting the cases at him. 
“Here is the engine. I take the train 
just coming in now back to Lucerne. Pardon 
me if I leave you abruptly.” 

Herr Erheim, with a parting bow, hurried 
to the ticket olRce. Before he emerged. 
Jack’s train had pulled out, the return 
train had puffed panting in, and Jack, still 
standing beside the cases, saw his swarthy 
friend rush out, leap aboard and disappear. 
The train started with a jerk, slowly in- 
creased its speed and disappeared. 

Jack stood alone with the recovered engine. 
His desire for laughter was yet unsatisfied, 
and, with a chuckle of triumph, he picked 
up the cases and turned away. A rude 
cab drove in sight; Jack signalled the 


JACK COLLERTON BECOMES J. COPE 187 

driver, climbed aboard and gave the order 
‘^To a hotel.” The cabman cracked his 
whip and started down the broad street 
of the pleasant little Swiss village. 

A short trip brought Jack to the Hotel 
de la Couronne, where a broad, vine-shaded 
piazza with its white-spread tables appealed 
to the hunger of the boy. A room was Jack’s 
first necessity, however, and he hastened 
up the stairs with his cases borne before 
him. 

Once inside the room, he locked the door 
hastily and threw off the shrouding canvas. 
There beneath were the well-known leather 
cases with their three locks, and it took 
but an instant for Jack to pull his keys 
from his pocket and unlock the three clasps. 

He threw back the covers with a beating 
heart. Everything within appeared the same 
as when he had seen it last. Should he 
unpack the cases and check the contents? 
Jack hesitated at the question, but time 
was too pressing to waste, and he decided 


1 88 JACK COLLERTON^S ENGINE 

to make no farther examination. There 
was but little probability that any deliberate 
injury would have been done the engine, 
considering the care with which it had been 
preserved. So the lad swiftly locked the 
cases again and with them in hand sought 
the first floor. 

“I want to go through to Gletsch and 
then to Brigue to-night,” he said to the man 
in the little office of the hotel. “Can I 
get a train?” 

The man stared in amazement. “But 
there is no train through the passes,” he ex- 
claimed. “There is nothing but the diligence, 
which leaves from the post-office. The next 
diligence through the Grimsel leaves at 
six o’clock to-morrow morning for Gletsch. 
There are but two a day, the six o’clock 
and the one at twenty minutes before one. 
Monsieur must sleep here and take the 
six o’clock.” 

“What is Gletsch, anyway?” persisted 
Jack. 


JACK COLLERTON BECOMES J. COPE 189 

‘‘It is the end of the route from Meir- 
ingen,” answered the clerk. “Monsieur can 
get a diligence from Gletsch to Brigue 
which will leave in less than an hour from 
the time he arrives in Gletsch. He will 
then reach Brigue at twenty-five minutes 
before eight at night.” 

“No use,” said Jack determinedly. “I’ve 
got to go to-night. Can’t I get an auto- 
mobile to take me through?” 

The man threw up his hands with a 
gesture of despair. “But no automobiles 
are allowed on the passes,” he cried. “No! 
There is nothing for Monsieur to do but 
to remain here to-night, and the Couronne 
can supply such an excellent dinner. It 
would be a veritable crime to go.” 

Jack thought a moment. “Who has 
charge of the diligences?” he asked. 

“The postmaster at the post-office,” ex- 
plained the clerk. “It is but a few steps 
down the street. If Monsieur wishes, we 
will engage a place for him on the six o’clock.” 


190 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

‘‘No. I’ll go down there myself,” said 
Jack. 

Jack hurried down the street to the 
post-office, standing on the left of the street 
and easily distinguishable by its official 
air and by the courtyard of the post station 
beside it. He entered and went to the 
little wicket. “Can I get a carriage to 
take me through to Gletsch to-night?” he 
asked. 

The man meditated for a moment, his 
hand on his chin. 

“You can do better than that, if you 
wish,” he said finally. “There is an extra 
diligence which came here with a party 
and which goes back to-night. It leaves 
in an hour and if you wish a place, you 
may take it.” 

Overjoyed, Jack paid his thirty-five francs 
and started back to the Hotel de la Couronne. 

Used as he was to mad English and 
Americans, the clerk could hardly restrain 
his amazement at Jack’s evening departure. 


JACK COLLERTON BECOMES J. COPE 191 

But finding his protestations useless, he 
finally shrugged his shoulders and pro- 
ceeded to hurry up the dinner. 

Jack dined well on the broad veranda, 
past which ebbed and flowed the quiet 
movement of the village. As he ate, he 
figured out the possibilities by the aid of 
time-tables. Leaving Meiringen at nine, 
he should reach Gletsch by four or five. 
If he got through on time, he could break- 
fast at Gletsch and take the early morning 
diligence for Brigue, leaving at twenty 
minutes before seven. He should arrive 
at Brigue at a quarter of twelve. There 
began the straight road to Territet with 
only two hours and a half of travel between 
the points. He could leave Brigue at 2.58 
and reach Territet at 5.28. An arrival 
the next night would give him two full 
days in which to file his application.. 

Dinner over. Jack crammed his pile of 
time-tables and folders into his pocket and 
started down the street, following a porter 


192 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

with the cases, now divested of their con- 
cealing canvas coverings. “No use in lugging 
around all that extra weight,” thought 
Jack, as he removed them. “Of course 
the reason they put them on was to con- 
ceal the real appearance.” 

Out in the middle of the post yard stood 
the diligence, but the horses had not yet 
appeared, and as Jack climbed up into the 
banquette and settled his cases safely, the 
clerk, with whom he had spoken, passed 
him on his way off duty and greeted him 
with a friendly smile. As he saw Jack’s 
suit of light flannel, a look of solicitude 
passed over his face. 

“Ah! But you should have changed to 
heavier clothes for a night trip over the 
pass,” he said anxiously. “Get your heavy 
things from your bags and put them on, I 
pray.” 

Jack laughed. “I haven’t any heavy 
things with me,” he said. “They’re all 
coming later.” 


JACK COLLERTON BECOMES J. COPE 193 

The clerk turned on his heel and re- 
entered the post-office, reappearing with a 
big cape and a couple of heavy horse blankets. 

‘‘There is a haleriney^ he said, holding 
out the cape, “and here are a couple of 
heavy blankets. You will need them all. 
and the guard will bring them back to me 
if you ask him to return them to Herr 
Biewindt at the post-office, Meiringen. If 
you go down the valley of the Rhone you 
can send them back from Brigue as well 
as from Gletsch. All know me on this 
route.” 

The offer was too kind to be refused, 
and though the warm summer night made 
Jack feel that it was an unnecessary pre- 
caution, he took the wraps gratefully and 
stowed them on the seat beside him. The 
clerk departed, and Jack was left to his 
meditations. 

The grooms brought out the horses with 
their traces clattering at their heels, and 
the driver and guard strolled slowly from 
13 


194 jack COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

the door. They climbed to their places 
on the little shelf at the front. The grooms 
fastened the last buckles and handed the 
reins to the driver. He threw loose the 
brake, chirruped to his horses, and they 
were off. 

The first of the way was a steady descent 
into the valley of the Aar, the rushing 
stream that, cutting its way through the 
great mountain barriers, runs beside the 
steep pathway through the Grimsel. 

Down the long windings along the moun- 
tainside the diligence passed, under the full 
splendor of the moonlit night. The long 
valley below showed scattered lights, and 
sounds of laughter and quiet talk came 
from occasional roadside groups. Through 
tunnels and past ravines they went into a 
natural basin where, at villages with a post 
station, they paused to leave a letter or 
to change the sweating steeds for fresh 
horses. 

By easy gradients the long climb began. 


JACK COLLERTON BECOMES J. COPE 195 

The air was sharper now, and the lad gladly 
shrouded himself in the folds of the heavy 
balerine. The narrow road, just wide enough 
for two carriages to pass abreast, ran like 
a shelf on the side of the ravine, while far 
below the raging torrent broke in white 
froth among rocky boulders. 

They were still climbing through the 
clear cool air, and Jack, in his high seat, 
was dozing in the warmth of the balerinCy 
when the noise of singing came to his ears. 
He started up as the sound came nearer 
to see a company of Swiss soldiers marching 
at ease, preceded by their band. 

To his amazement every man was flower- 
laden. The bass horn ended in a huge 
bouquet, the bugles seemed as vases, and 
every man’s gun was tipped with flowers. 

One of the men, with a steady aim, sent 
a sweet-smelling Alpine bouquet straight 
at Jack’s head, and in a moment he was 
deluged with blossoms. As he emerged 
laughing from the shower, he found it hard 


196 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

to realize that the apparent crowd of laugh- 
ing schoolboys could be a part of that sturdy 
band of Swiss soldiers who hold the Repub- 
lic intact to-day, as their forefathers have 
held it for centuries. 

Jack had need of all his wrappings now. 
The air was piercing as a December night. 
In three hours he had come from midsummer 
to midwinter, but the friendly aid of the 
post-office clerk served him well, and nest- 
ling back on the wide seat, enveloped in 
the folds of the cloak, he fell asleep. 

Jack woke with a start, as the diligence 
stopped before a gray stone building stand- 
ing in a barren waste, where banks of snow 
whitened the ground. It was the old Grimsel 
Hospice, once a refuge for travellers cross- 
ing the Grimsel, now an inn. A man with 
a lantern was talking earnestly to the guard. 

‘‘This is the post-office official,” said the 
guard, looking up at Jack and jerking a 
thumb over his shoulder. “He wishes to 
ask you some questions.” 


JACK COLLERTON BECOMES J. COPE 197 

‘‘Are you Mr. J. Cope?” asked the official, 
consulting a telegram which he held in his 
hand. 

“My name’s Collerton, John Collerton,” 
answered Jack calmly, every sense alive. 

“You have two canvas-covered cases?” 
went on the official, interrogatively. 

“I have two leather cases,” said Jack, 
and he brought his luggage into view. 

The official scratched his head, and looked 
first at the cases and then at the telegram. 
“That does not fit,” he said finally. “It 
says here ‘two canvas cases.’ And you 
have a balerine^ too. It says here, ‘no 
outer garments, gray suit.’” 

Jack waited breathlessly for the guard 
to explain the loaned baleriney but he kept 
silence. Either he did not know of the 
loan, or did not care to be involved in the 
matter. 

The official seemed much perplexed. At 
last a look of relief passed over his face. 
“If you are named Collerton, you must 


198 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

have something to prove it,” he said cun- 
ningly. 

“Certainly,” answered Jack, blessing the 
wisdom which had prompted him to give 
his right name. He dived into his pocket, 
produced his black leather case and opened 
it. “Here is a letter of credit made out 
jointly to my father and to myself. Express 
Company checks made similarly, some of 
my cards, and a power of attorney made 
out to me by my father.” 

Jack watched the official sharply as he 
handled the various pieces of evidence, not 
only to ascertain his feeling, but also to 
make sure his valuable property did not 
disappear. 

The examination concluded, the official 
handed the papers back to Jack and shook 
his head. 

“It is all right,” he said. “None of these 
things agree. The cases are not canvas- 
covered. There is an outside garment. The 
name is Collerton and not Cope. You 


JACK COLLERTON BECOMES J. COPE 199 

may go. Clearly they have made a mis- 
take.’’ 

The guard jumped to his place at the 
word. The horses started up, and the 
diligence creaked and rumbled off. Jack 
was safely past another danger. 

As they resumed the slow upward climb, 
Jack mused over the brief recent conversa- 
tion. “Of course,” he said to himself, 
“they could n’t really hold me for stealing 
my own cases. There ’s no chance of that 
when I am simply recovering my own 
stolen property. What they might have 
done, though, is to delay me long enough 
to keep me from getting the engine to 
Territet in time to enter. I ’m going to 
leave Brigue on that first train, anyway, 
and get the entry made the earliest possible 
moment.” 

He was roused from his reverie by the 
sudden disappearance of the moon, and 
he looked up to see snow walls towering 
for six feet or more above his head, as he 


200 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

sat in the high banquette. It was the 
first of the snow cuttings on the top of 
the Grimsel. 

Through an unbroken plain of white 
they plodded on, the wheels now crushing 
the hard snow, now striking on frozen 
ground where the snow was worn through 
by passage. The slopes were wholly deso- 
late, as the moon fell, and Jack only realized 
that they had reached the top of the pass 
by the creak of the brake as they began 
the first descent. As they descended, a 
thick mist held them as in a soft, clinging 
blanket, and its chill grew in upon him 
more and more as he sat shivering, till all 
at once, as the diligence rattled down- 
ward with increasing speed, a sudden lift- 
ing, like that of a rising curtain, brought 
them out from under the cloud. 

No scene like this had ever met Jack’s 
eyes before. As far as the eye could reach, 
gigantic mountains towered, their peaks 
flushed with the dawn, their sides blanched 


JACK COLLERTON BECOMES J. COPE 201 

with their coverings of snow. The whole 
Bernese Oberland seemed stretched out be- 
fore him in one great panorama, illuminated 
like a flaming missal. Below the radiant 
sky of morning rose the crimson and golden 
of the lifting terminals. Sheer white tapes- 
tries as yet untouched by the swift rays of 
the dawn stretched downwards to the warm 
gray of the vegetation below the snow line, 
a vegetation which merged into the rich 
green of the forests, encircling the great 
cones below, and melted at last into fertile 
valleys where, in semi-darkness still wait- 
ing for the light, lay bands of silver water. 

One feature stood preeminent. Far down 
in the foreground, thousands of feet below, 
lay the great Rhone glacier, throwing back 
the morning radiance from a million dazzling 
facets, a huge cut jewel in the midst of a 
worthy setting. The road downward into 
Gletsch, and the road ascending the upper 
Furka on the opposite side of the valley 
circled back and forth along the mountain 


202 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

edges like the coiled rope of halyards lying 
on a deck. 

Jack sat breathless with awe as the 
diligence flew downward, a breathlessness 
changed after a while to nervous excitement 
as the dawn changed to full day, and the 
four horses charged swiftly downward on 
sharp curves, where every moment the 
diligence seemed to be ready to fly off in 
a straight line and drop a few thousand 
feet on the hotels below. But nothing 
happened, after all. The diligence reached 
the lower level and rattled up to the Hotel 
Glacier du Rhone without a single mishap. 

A wash and a good breakfast at the hotel 
freshened Jack greatly, and it was with a 
cheerful heart that, having secured another 
place in the banquette, he climbed aboard 
with the cases, and, starting on his ascent 
out of the valley, began the five-hour trip 
to Brigue. A comparatively short ascent 
was followed by a similar short descent, 
and the road down through the valley of 


JACK COLLERTON BECOMES J. COPE 203 

the Rhone proved a delightful contrast to 
the rugged ascent of the valley of the Aar. 

Through smiling hay-fields where haying 
parties were breakfasting near the road, 
by wayside crosses with occasional intent 
worshippers kneeling before them, through 
rude hamlets and pleasant villages, they 
passed, with the broad river constantly 
beside them. Jack dozed from time to 
time as the hours sped swiftly. At length 
he roused himself, as he saw a great box- 
shaped conduit running along between the 
river and the road. 

‘‘What is that?” he called to the guard 
ahead. 

“The water of the Rhone serving to run 
the electricity that pushes cars through the 
Simplon tunnel,” was the reply. 

And now the diligence entered the Italian 
Quarter of Brigue, where the many Italians 
who worked on this end of the great Sim- 
plon tunnel were stationed, and where every 
shop has an Italian sign, drove past the 


204 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

big railway station, by the white-walled 
Italian looking shops and houses (Brigue 
is only forty-five minutes’ run from Italy), 
and then, with a final flourish and an osten- 
tatious gallop, drew up to the square. 

Jack descended with his cases and stretched 
his legs. As he gazed around, he saw the 
guard approaching with a uniformed offi- 
cial, and a premonition of trouble came 
over him. 

“Mr. Collerton?” said the inspector of 
police. 

Jack nodded. 

“I arrest you in the name of the Republic.” 



“I arrest you in the name ot. the Republic” 


Page 204 


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CHAPTER NINE 


A STUPID JAILER AND A WISE MAGISTRATE 

“On what charge?” asked Jack coolly, 
forewarned by his experience at the Grimsel 
Hospice. 

‘‘Of stealing those cases beside you from 
Monsieur Heinrich Erheim at Meiringen. 
Your escape at the Grimsel did you no 
good. The telegraph was too much for 
you.” 

“The cases are my own,” said Jack 
calmly, “as I can very readily prove. I 
am a citizen of the United States, and I 
shall appeal to the nearest United States 
consul. I warn you that you are making 
a very serious mistake.” 

“That may be or no,” answered the 
official impatiently. “I have neither time 
nor inclination to find out. I merely obey 


2o6 jack COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

orders. You are to come with me to the 
prison, and the examining magistrate will 
decide on your case immediately. Come, 
hurry!” he cried, calling a cab. “I must 
take you to the jail, and get a train im- 
mediately. They had no business to give 
me this work, when they knew my haste 
to get away!” he murmured angrily. 

Jack considered the situation swiftly. 
There was nothing to be gained by resist- 
ance. The man who resists the arm of 
the law determined on making an arrest 
makes a great mistake, so the lad preceded 
the anxious officer into the cab, and they 
drove swiftly to the prison. 

The gates opened and closed, admitting 
the carriage to a small, paved courtyard 
surrounded by gray stone walls. Once safely 
within. Jack was hurried unceremoniously 
out of the carriage into an open door at 
one end, and then pushed into a small 
office, where a huge, shock-headed Swiss 
with goggle eyes and an open mouth rose 


A STUPID JAILER 207 

from a wooden chair beside a plain deal 
table to receive the newcomers. 

The official hurried in behind Jack, and 
the driver brought up the rear of the pro- 
cession, with the precious cases. 

“Here, Reber,” cried the official, “here 
is a case for the magistrate! Here is the 
telegram concerning it. Here is the stolen 
property. Here is the man. Put him in a 
good room and notify the magistrate. I 
must go to my train,” and he started to 
dash off. 

Jack stepped in his way. “Wait!” he 
said. “Those cases must be carefully looked 
out for, and I must have a chance to get 
word to my consul.” 

“Oh, pshaw!” said the official. “I can- 
not wait, I tell you. Here, Reber, put 
those cases in the vault. I can wait no 
longer,” he repeated, and despite Jack’s 
outstretched arm, the man dashed off after 
the cab driver, who had already disappeared. 

The big Swiss stood stock-still, rolling 


2o8 jack COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

his goggle eyes and slowly shaking his head 
at Jack, who had taken a seat on a bare 
settle. 

“A bad one. You are a bad one,” he 
said slowly, in a rude patois which Jack 
just barely understood. “Reber knows. 
Reber can tell them every time,” he went 
on fatuously. “Oh! They know that Reber 
knows. That is why they put me, Reber, 
in charge of the prison when the captain 
is sick.” He shook his head again, with 
an owlish expression of gravity. 

“All right, Reber,” said Jack, measuring 
his jailer. “Now I suppose you would 
think it wise to put those cases safely in 
the vault, wouldn’t you?” 

Reber considered the proposition slowly. 
“That is right,” he said. “That is what 
Reber was told to do.” He turned lumber- 
ingly, picked up the cases, took them to a 
big vault in the side of the room, opened 
the door and put them in. As the warden 
closed and locked the door. Jack heaved a 
sigh of relief. 


A STUPID JAILER 209 

‘‘There,” he said to himself, “if I can’t 
get them now, I don’t believe any one else 
can, and as soon as I get hold of the magis- 
trate I ’ll get them back all right.” 

The jailer now raised the bundle of keys 
that swung at his belt, selected one, and 
motioned to Jack to precede him. Making 
the best of a bad situation. Jack obeyed, 
and the two passed out of the office, through 
a grated door and up some stone steps into 
a corridor. The jailer opened a cell door, 
and they entered. Jack looked around him. 
Four bare stone walls, a rude pallet, a stool, 
and a basin with running water comprised 
the whole tale of his surroundings. He 
turned to Reber. 

“Now,” he said, “I want three things: 
some lunch sent in at once; here is some 
money for it. I want to see the examining 
magistrate immediately, and I want writing 
materials to send some telegrams.” 

A look of low cunning spread over the 

jailer’s face at the last request. “No, no!” 

14 


210 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

he said. “You don’t trick Reber that way. 
No writing to confederates. No, no! Reber 
was n’t born yesterday. They know what 
they do when they leave Reber in charge.” 
He drew himself up proudly. 

For the first time Jack lost his temper. 
“Confound your stupidity,” he cried. “I 
am an absolutely innocent man, and I must 
have a chance to clear myself at once! 
I must get out of here immediately.” 

At the mention of stupidity, the warden’s 
face became suffused with a dull red. “Reber 
stupid!” he growled. “No, no! That is 
what they used to say, but they can say it 
no longer. They would never have left 
Reber in charge of the prison if he had been 
stupid. Ah! ah!” he went on angrily, 
“you are a bad one! Reber saw it when 
he first clapped eyes on you,” and he nodded 
approval of his own wisdom. 

Before Jack could collect his wits suffi- 
ciently to decide upon a line of attack, his 
jailer had left the room and shut the door 


A STUPID JAILER 21 1 

with a clang. The bolt shot back and 
the warden, looking through the bars, stared 
at his prisoner with open goggle eyes and 
grumbled once more, ‘‘You are a bad one, 
a bad one! Reber stupid.^ Oh, no! But 
you shall have something to eat,” and he 
turned away. 

Jack leaped to his feet as he heard the 
departing footsteps, and clinging to the 
bars of his grated door, shouted after him, 
“Reber! Reber!” but in vain. All the 
satisfaction he got from the process was to 
see the huge bowed back and shaking head 
pass down the corridor and out of view. 

Exasperated to the last degree by the 
experiences through which he has just passed. 
Jack for the first time nearly lost control 
of himself. Shaking from the struggle, he 
forced himself to walk calmly back to his 
bed, to sit down upon it, and coolly to 
review the situation. 

“First and foremost, to consider things 
here,” he said to himself. “The jailer is an 


212 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

utter blockhead, whom I have unfortunately 
angered. If I can only get into communica- 
tion with the examining magistrate rapidly 
enough, I may be all right still, but things 
have somehow got to be straightened out 
at once. There ’s little time left. It would 
do me absolutely no good to try to escape. 
If every door was open and I could get 
free, my freedom would be practically use- 
less without the cases. What I must do is 
to get a telegram off to Bob and get into 
communication with the magistrate.” 

Jack’s reveries were cut short by a lunch- 
eon brought by Reber’s own hands, and 
passed through a slide in the door. When 
he had finished his lunch, he started in to 
consider affairs anew. ‘‘My best chance 
is n’t with Reber. That’s settled,” he solilo- 
quized. “What I’d better do is to get two 
notes ready, — one a telegram to Bob, and 
one a respectful note to the magistrate, 
asking for a hearing. If father had only 
been along, how different things would have 


A STUPID JAILER 213 

been! I seem to have been born with a 
genius for getting into messes. But here 
goes for the telegram and the note. I ’ll 
have to use my visiting cards for stationery. 
I have n’t anything else. Lucky I have 
my fountain pen.” 

After brief thought, Jack produced the 
following notes: 

Robert Burne, 

Hotel de V Europe^ Lucerne^ Switzerland: 

Am imprisoned at Brigue on charge of steal- 
ing my own cases. Come at once, bringing 
my credentials. Wire nearest United States 
consul of the facts and put him to work on my 
release. Cannot get interview with examining 
magistrate. 

CoLLERTON. 

To THE Examining Magistrate at Brigue: 

I am a citizen of the United States, arrested 
on a false charge, unsupported by evidence. I 
have been thrown into the prison at Brigue. 
I am refused an interview with you or the right 
to notify my friends or the United States consul. 


214 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

I protest at this injustice done to a citizen of 
a friendly nation, and request an immediate 
examination. 

John Collerton. 

When Jack had composed these, he took 
a twenty-franc piece from his purse and 
slipped the cards and the money into his 
waistcoat pocket. Then he sat down to 
his meditations once more. How to get 
the messages out of the prison and to their 
proper destination.^ That was the grave 
question which confronted him. 

The prison seemed practically deserted 
on his side. He could hear no one in the 
other cells of his corridor, and the long 
afternoon passed almost without a sound to 
break the monotony. Dinner time brought 
Reber, bearing a tray and gazing about 
him with a stupid scowl. The jailer was 
too much incensed to pay the slightest 
attention to Jack’s requests, and the lad, 
when the long day was over, threw himself 
on his bed and slept. 


A STUPID JAILER 215 

He was not destined to pass the night 
undisturbed. About midnight he was roused 
by loud talking and by shuffling steps, 
sounds which brought him quickly up into 
a sitting position. The noise came nearer, 
and he could hear Reber’s voice. Hope 
sprang up in his heart. This might be 
the magistrate come at last. As the shuf- 
fling steps came nearer and stopped before 
his cell door. Jack’s heart sank. His visi- 
tors were evidently Reber and two of his 
cronies, who had dropped in to pass a 
pleasant evening, and to whom the jailer 
wished to exhibit one of his most interesting 
specimens. 

One of the visitors was a stout, short 
man, with a long, fair beard. The other 
was a shambling giant, so much like Reber 
himself that a relationship was evident. 
The three clustered about the bars, the 
shorter man in front and the two tall men 
behind. All three gazed at the lad blink- 
ingly by the light of a rude lamp held on 
high. 


2i6 jack COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

The jailer shook his head owlishly. ^‘You 
see it is as Reber says,” he remarked with 
portentous gravity. “A bad one. He is a 
bad one.” 

With an entire assent, the two companions 
chorused his words, wagging their heads 
like china mandarins: “Oh! A bad one! 
He is a bad one.” 

Jack made one more appeal, convinced 
as he was of its futility. “Gentlemen!” he 
said, without allowing a trace of sarcasm 
to reach his voice. “Gentlemen! I beg you 
to convince Herr Reber that I must have 
an interview with the examining magis- 
trate immediately.” 

Never a whit did his words impress his 
visitors, who stood for some minutes silently 
staring at him, only to leave at last to the 
sound of a slow chorus of “A bad one! 
Yes, a bad one!” The short, bearded man 
hurled one Parthian dart as he turned away, 
“Look at his shirt,” he said. “Why, it is 
dirtier than mine, and he w^ould pretend 


A STUPID JAILER 217 

to be innocent and a gentleman and to 
own those handsome cases!” 

Jack laughed to himself as the sound of 
the retreating footsteps ceased. “There’s 
more truth than poetry, I ’m afraid, in 
that remark about my shirt. But really,” 
he went on, “why shouldn’t I be able to 
get some fresh clothes to-morrow, and work 
the jailer to let in a salesman to sell them 
to me — one who may take out my mes- 
sages.^ I’ll try that in the morning.” In- 
spired with fresh confidence from the thought 
he fell asleep. 

The next morning Jack preferred his 
request with his breakfast, pleading es- 
pecially that some one be allowed to come 
in to measure him and fit him to fresh 
clothes. By working on the knowledge of 
the jailer’s character which he had already 
obtained, he was able to get him to agree 
to consider the matter, and by noon he 
had reached a point where his captor said 
as he left: “Reber will get you a man with 


2i8 jack COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

clothes. But,” he added suspiciously, ‘^don’t 
you try any tricks. If you do it will be 
the worse for you. Reber will know it if 
you do. He is sharp. He would not have 
been left in charge of the prison else.” 

With an anxious heart. Jack heard foot- 
steps coming down the corridor about an 
hour after dinner. The cell door opened 
and the warden entered, followed by a 
young Jew burdened by two piles of paste- 
board boxes carefully tied together. The 
tradesman untied his parcels, opened 
them, and laid some white shirts on the 
bed. 

“Now, sir,” he said in good English. 

Seldom had Jack ever greeted his mother 
tongue so gladly. The way was open now. 
He spoke quickly. 

“I am an entirely innocent traveller, im- 
prisoned here by a grave mistake. This 
stupid jailer will not notify the magistrate.” 
Jack had just reached this point when 
Reber, who had been growing more and 


A STUPID JAILER 219 

more uneasy at the sound of the strange 
tongue, broke in sharply in his rude patois: 

^‘Stop there! No more talking. Buy.” 

As Jack selected one shirt from the pile, 
he managed, while the jailer was not look- 
ing, to show his gold piece and his messages, 
and to slip them into the folds of a shirt 
lying at the top of the pile. The young 
Jew nodded understandingly, and when the 
purchases were completed, gathered up his 
boxes and went away. 

He left Jack to an anxious period of 
waiting. Hour after hour passed with no 
sign of deliverance. The weary afternoon 
dragged on into evening, and darkness 
settled down without a sign. Dinner came 
and went without a word from the jailer; 
and Jack, worn out with the anxiety of 
the day, finally fell asleep at midnight. 

He awoke the next morning at the sound 
of a clanging door, and glanced at his watch, 
to find it already half-past eight. He real- 
ized with a kind of dull despair that it was 


220 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

the final day of entry, that if he did not 
reach Territet by five that afternoon all 
would be lost, and the Odyssey of adven- 
ture through which he had passed would be 
all in vain. 

He jumped out of bed and dressed hur- 
riedly. He was becoming more and more 
convinced that his message to the outer 
world, sent by the young Jew, had mis- 
carried, and that he was doomed to an 
indefinite period of imprisonment. He would 
lose no chances, however, and he dressed 
himself with all the care possible under 
the conditions, in order to make the best 
impression he could upon the hoped-for 
magistrate. He was beginning to get raven- 
ously hungry while he finished dressing, 
and he was waiting expectantly when the 
sound of approaching footsteps broke upon 
his ear. 

As the steps came nearer. Jack felt a 
sudden thrill of hope. The noise was wholly 
unlike the slow shamble of the giant jailer. 


A STUPID JAILER 221 

These sounds were brisk and methodical. 
The walker came rapidly towards the cell, 
jingling some keys, and paused for a moment 
before the grated door. It was a trigly 
uniformed inspector of police. He unlocked 
the door, swung it open, and bowed gravely 
to Jack. 

‘‘If you will precede me,” he said briefly. 

That bow warmed the cockles of Jack’s 
heart. He might be wrong, but he be- 
lieved it augured better things. Certainly 
inspectors of police did not bow to common 
criminals. Out through the grated door 
they passed, by the office and out into the 
courtyard, without a sign of Reber. A 
closed carriage stood waiting, with one 
man inside and two men on the box. The 
inspector motioned to Jack to enter, but he 
held back. 

“My cases are in the vault in the prison 
office,” he said. “I cannot go without 
them.” 

“The cases have already been sent to 


222 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

the office of the examining magistrate,” 
said the inspector gravely. The messenger 
had proved faithful. 

They made a short stop, to give Jack a 
chance to breakfast in the private room of 
a cafe, then a brief ride brought them to 
a house on a side street. The two inspec- 
tors, with Jack between them, led the way 
into the house, passed through a hallway and 
into a large office, where a large desk at 
one end with a comfortable chair behind 
it indicated the magistrate’s position. A 
smaller desk at one side was already occupied 
by a thin, bald clerk peering over his spec- 
tacles at the incomers, and engaged in 
fastening some black alpaca half-sleeves over 
the cuffs of his striped seersucker coat. 
Jack, to his great relief, saw his cases stand- 
ing beside the clerk’s desk. 

The inspectors and Jack were scarcely 
seated when a door at the right opened, 
and the magistrate appeared patently finish- 
ing his breakfast as he came. He bustled 


A STUPID JAILER 223 

to his place, filled to its utmost capacity 
the big armchair, drew a large white hand- 
kerchief from his pocket and, removing 
gold-bowed glasses from shrewd, kindly eyes, 
opened the examination. 

‘‘Mr. Collerton or Mr. Cope, which 
he asked briefly. 

“John Collerton of Salem, Massachu- 
setts, U. S. A.” answered Jack. 

“Your papers?” asked the magistrate. 
“My passport is in my large trunk at 
Lucerne,” answered Jack. “But I think 
these papers may serve.” And he handed 
his pocketbook to the magistrate, who made 
a careful examination of the documents, 
and then handed them to the clerk, who 
gravely made some notes and handed the 
letter-case back to its owner. 

“Now if you will tell me your story in 
your own way, I think you will find it the 

wisest course to pursue,” went on the magis- 
*»► 

trate. 

Jack was more than ready to respond. 


224 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

In the long hours of his imprisonment he 
had deliberately worked out his tale in 
every point, and his story of the strange 
events of the past weeks was strong and 
convincing. More than once, as the narra- 
tive progressed, he brought out a climax 
or an argument with such telling force as 
to bring a nod of approval from the thin 
clerk, who was busily writing down each 
word. The magistrate listened impassively 
throughout, his plump hands held judi- 
cially poised, the fingers meeting tip to tip. 
When Jack ended, the magistrate sat for 
some minutes in deep thought. At last 
he spoke. 

“Can you show in any way that these 
engines which you have with you are really 
your own property?” 

“I am not sure,” said Jack slowly. “Let 
me think a moment.” 

Swiftly he reviewed all his belongings. 
The cases were unmarked, and the brass 
plates which were to have borne the name 


A STUPID JAILER 225 

of the ‘‘Collerton Engine” had not arrived 
when he and his father left. In conse- 
quence, the only means of identification on 
the cases had been the labels on the out- 
side, all of which had been carefully removed 
while they were out of Jack’s possession. 
Twice he ran over the whole of his posses- 
sions and each time he came to a blank 
wall at the end. He shook his head. “I 
don’t know,” he said. 

“Think about it a little longer,” urged 
the magistrate, impressed more and more 
favorably by the frank candor of the youth. 

By one of those queerly illogical trains 
of thought that sometimes persist even in 
times of great mental strain. Jack found 
his mind wandering to other men placed 
in trying conditions, and half smiled as he 
recollected a story of an artist who had 
escaped from a savage cannibal tribe by 
drawing caricatures of the chiefs. As the 
word “drawing” flashed through his brain 
he saw the clew. 


226 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

“I have it!” he cried, leaping up. 
can draw every part of that engine from 
beginning to end from memory, and you 
can compare the original and the drawing 
afterwards. Now I certainly could n’t have 
learned all that about the engine between 
the time they say I stole my own cases at 
Meiringen and the time they took them from 
me here at Brigue.” 

The magistrate shook his head slowly in 
assent. ‘‘That is right,” he answered. “You 
could not. If you can sit down here and 
draw plans of the different parts so that we 
can recognize them, that will be sufficient.” 

Jack wasted no time. With the clerk’s 
desk, some sharp pointed pencils, a ruler 
and some white paper, he set to work. 
With never a false move, with never a 
moment’s hesitation, line after line crossed 
the paper, dimension after dimension ap- 
peared in neat letters at the side of the 
sheet. As the third sheet was finished, the 
magistrate and the clerk, both drawn to the 


A STUPID JAILER 227 

shoulder of the absorbed lad by a common 
interest, nodded to each other in sympa- 
thetic approval. 

‘‘That is enough, my boy,” said the 
magistrate. “Now unlock those cases there 
and show us these strange-shaped things 
you have drawn so well.” Jack rapidly 
obeyed, threw up the covers and took out 
the three parts of the engine which he had 
drawn so roughly to scale. With the pleased 
interest of children, the provincial magis- 
trate and his clerk examined first the part, 
then the drawing, and wound up by inspect- 
ing the artist with great interest. 

“Well done!” exclaimed the magistrate, 
patting Jack on the shoulder. “I would 
not have believed it could be so well done 
from memory. That is quite enough to 
prove your ownership of the cases. I am 
sorry for all you have suffered in this case. 
That fool Reber will make no trouble for 
any one else, however. He has been dis- 
charged. You did well to get a message 


228 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

to me. All the papers were at the jail, and 
I heard nothing more of the matter. I 
thought it strange, too,” he continued re- 
flectively, ‘‘that nothing more came from 
Lucerne. The rascal from whom you got 
your own cases must have got frightened 
after his first complaint, and appeared no 
more. He could have known of you only as 
Cope, for the word to arrest a man named 
Collerton came from the Grimsel Hospice, 
where you were stopped.” 

“Now,” asked Jack anxiously, “if I am 
free, may I go? I must reach Territet 
before five o’clock.” 

“Bless my soul, yes!” said the magis- 
trate, looking at his watch. “You must 
hurry, though. The next train leaves in 
twelve minutes.” 

“Thank you so much!” said Jack, seiz- 
ing his cases and plunging through the 
door. “Good morning!” 

“Good morning!” chorused the magis- 
trate and the clerk, as the lad disappeared. 


A STUPID JAILER 229 

Out by the garden wall and past the 
sentinel poplars Jack hurried, hampered by 
his heavy cases. No cab was in sight, but 
just then round the corner came a cart 
driven by a sleepy boy. Jack leaped to 
the side of the cart. 

‘‘Five francs if you get me to the station 
in eight minutes!” he cried. For an instant 
the boy sat agape at the sudden invasion, 
until the five-franc proposition, having pene- 
trated his brain, electrified him to life. As 
Jack held a five-franc piece out, the boy 
suddenly laid whip to the slow-moving nag, 
and started at a galloping pace down the 
street. 

Through the cobbled streets they rattled, 
the wagon swaying and sluing till Jack had 
to use all his skill in preventing either him- 
self or his cases from being hurled out. 
Now they came in sight of the station, and 
the clock showed the hour 12.58. It was 
the exact moment when the train left, and 
the long train of cars stood in the sta- 


230 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

tion, with the puffing engine just ready for 
departure. 

‘‘Hurry!” cried Jack, and the boy, thor- 
oughly imbued with the spirit of the race, 
urged his horse on still more. 

But all was in vain. The engine tooted 
its loud signal, the train started its slow 
motion, and Jack, leaping to the ground 
with his cases, reached the front of the sta- 
tion in time to see the rear end of the train 
rapidly receding from him a hundred yards 
away. For a moment he stood dazed at 
this latest misfortune. Then, gathering him- 
self together, he hurried into the station 
office. 

“What’s the next train to Territet?” he 
asked. 

“Two fifty-eight, reaching Territet at 
5.28,” was the reply. That train would be 
of no use. 

“Can I have a special which would get 
me there before five o’clock?” asked Jack 
anxiously. 


A STUPID JAILER 231 

The man in the station office shook his 
head. “No. We should have to send down 
to Visp for an engine. As it happens we 
have none here to-day. You can do noth- 
ing better than to take the next train.” 

“Could an automobile take me through 
in time.^” continued Jack. 

“Absolutely impossible!” answered the 
station master. “In the present condition 
of the roads it would take at least six hours, 
the fastest you could go, unless a flying 
wind dropped from the clouds to carry you.” 

Suddenly all the company waiting in the 
station rushed to the doors and windows, 
looking eagerly upward, and a chorus of 
wondering cries arose. “Look at him! See 
them! See it go!” 


CHAPTER TEN 


THE COLLERTON ENGINE COMES TO LAND 

Jack Stood still, gazing absent-mindedly 
at the hurrying men and women. There 
was not likely to be any excitement here that 
would concern him. But as he meditated, 
he suddenly realized that all the people 
were peering upward, and that the cause 
of their excitement must be in the air, 
and not on land. 

He hurried out across the veranda into 
the square before the station. Then he 
looked up. Hovering over the town at a 
height which would just easily clear the 
tree-tops was a dirigible balloon having a 
long, fish-like body and a ladder framework 
underneath, on which could be seen three 
men, — an operator forward, a scout in 
the waist, and a helmsman aft! It was 


THE COLLERTON ENGINE LANDS 233 

Mettelin’s airship! There could be no mis- 
take. 

Whether the coming of the airship to 
Brigue was due to chance or to a direct 
connection with his own case, Jack could 
not tell. One thing, at least, was certain. 
Here was a way to get to Terri tet in time, 
provided he could catch Herr Mettelin’s 
attention. The airship seemed to be head- 
ing slowly for the upper square of the town 
now, and Jack rushed along after it in the 
middle of the street. 

As he ran ahead with upturned eyes, he 
bumped into many aerial gazers, saved 
himself from many more imminent colli- 
sions, and generally made himself a nuisance 
to the peaceful inhabitants of the town 
of Brigue. But every one was inclined to 
be good-natured, and his flashing smile and 
pleasant apology carried him through safely. 
The airship was almost above him now, 
and as he crossed a more open space he 
heard a well-known summons from the 


234 jack COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

clouds: ‘‘Hey, Jack!’’ That resounding 
bellow could come from only one throat. 

‘‘Hey, Bob!” cried Jack joyously, as the 
airship hovered overhead. “Good after- 
noon, Herr Mettelin!” he added courteously 
to the helmsman, intent upon his task. 

“Good afternoon, Mr. Collerton!” re- 
sponded Mettelin. “I came over here to 
ask you to accompany me to Territit. 
If you care to run the engine, and can tell 
me a place where I can descend, I will drop 
my operator here, and we can leave at once. 
Your cases can go on the framework di- 
rectly in front of Mr. Burne.” 

Never did voice from the clouds carry 
better tidings. Jack answered eagerly: 

“There is a large field over beyond the 
railroad station, Herr Mettelin. You can 
easily see it from your elevation, and I can 
reach it in ten minutes. If you will make 
the landing there, I shall be very glad to 
meet you and to take the engine.” 

“Very well,” answered Mettelin. “I see 
the field. I will meet you there shortly.” 


THE COLLERTON ENGINE LANDS 235 

Jack could hear the click of the levers In 
the stillness which had settled down over 
the crowd at the interchange of greetings 
between the messenger of the sky and this 
slight lad on foot, bearing two heavy cases, 
and Jack turned, to find the whole hushed 
assembly regarding him with wonder. 

He motioned to two peasant lads. ‘‘Take 
these cases carefully,” he cried, with a 
gesture, “and run ahead of me.” 

The boys obeyed, and the crowd opened 
for them as they darted through with Jack 
just behind. At best there was not a 
minute to lose. Jack had had too many 
ascensions not to know the possibilities 
of accident to some part of the delicate 
mechanism. 

As they ran on past the station and across 
the bridge. Jack could see the airship slowly 
descending over the chosen spot, and just 
as the lad with his two porters reached the 
field a rope was let down and the operator 
dropped from his place. 


236 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

The air was exceptionally calm, and the 
airship swayed gently, held at rest by 
Mettelin’s skill, but a few feet above the 
ground, while the engine ran on with steady 
vibrations. Bob reached down, pulled up the 
two cases with a rope and lashed each firmly 
to the framework in front of him. ‘‘Righto!” 
he cried. 

The operator had meantime divested him- 
self of his leather coat and cap, and had 
passed them to Jack, who assumed them 
and stood waiting. 

“Come aboard, Mr. Collerton,” said Herr 
Mettelin, and Jack, at the word, swarmed 
up the rope and took his place at the 
engine. 

Seated at his post, he heard the sharp, 
quick order to cast loose, saw the operator, 
in his shirt sleeves, throwing off the rope, 
which trailed for a moment, then cleared 
the ground and dangled below him, swing- 
ing in a narrow arc. 

The buzzing signal before him sounded. 


THE COLLERTON ENGINE LANDS 237 

he threw in the clutch and they were off, 
rising above the town and heading straight 
down the railroad track. Jack made sure 
that everything was running well with his 
engine, and then, turning his attention to 
the rope, he pulled it aboard, coiled it, and 
settled back in his seat. They were safely 
off for Territet. 

A “flying wind” had dropped from the 
clouds to carry him to the place of the 
competition. 

Bob, in his comfortable perch, was enjoy- 
ing to the full his second aerial journey. 
The trip from Lucerne by airship had 
duplicated Jack’s earlier passage through 
the Grimsel and down the Valley of the 
Rhone, but they had come at a far swifter 
speed. He smiled to himself as he thought 
of the fun of telling Jack his experiences, 
threw an affectionate glance at the cases 
lashed to the framework in front of him, 
and then turned his attention to the path- 
way the airship was traversing. 


238 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

No small part of Bob’s two summers In 
Switzerland had been spent in walking tours 
with a tutor, and he had crossed the Alps 
through half a dozen paths. One year, led 
by a sudden vagary, they had chosen to 
follow the Rhone from Its beginnings to its 
descent into the broad waters of Lake 
Leman, and it was with special Interest 
that Bob saw Herr Mettelln lay the course 
right down the valley of the Rhone, as the 
easiest and best way to reach Territet. 

Swiftly they flew towards Visp, where the 
Rhone makes Its first upward turn, and 
it was not long before the busy little railroad 
junction with its tiny, puffing, narrow gauge 
cars and whitewashed shops, flanked by 
some fine old houses set in formal gardens 
and guarded by poplars, came into view. 

As he sped through. Bob thought regret- 
fully of the rugged peak of the Matterhorn, 
just beyond his sight. 

They were over Sion now, where towers 
and castles shone in the afternoon sun, and 


THE COLLERTON ENGINE LANDS 239 

Bob, instinctively remembering the sharp 
angle of the river near Martigny fell to 
wondering whether the airship, confined by 
wooded hills, could make the turn. 

It did turn safely, ran like a bird through 
the narrows by St. Maurice, and passed out 
into the broad valley that runs from Bex 
to the head of the lake. 

They were past the worst of the trip. 
The upper valley had scarcely given them 
air room to manoeuvre. Cross currents and 
head winds had troubled them at times. 
But Mettelin’s genius as a pilot had been 
equal to every emergency. 

They passed Martigny in an hour and a 
quarter from their departure, and were at 
Aigle, more than half-way down the broad 
lower valley, in an equal space of time. 
As they swept on towards the lake, Bob 
felt they stood every chance of getting 
in on time. 

Two things more than all else struck 
Bob in this bird’s-eye view, — the enormous 


240 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

water supply of Switzerland and her won- 
derful roads. Over and over again, as he 
looked downward, he had seen the huge 
form of the airship clouding some rippling 
stream or mirrored in some little lake. 
Again and again they crossed the river, 
and with each crossing saw the stream grow 
greater as it added to itself the rushing water 
pouring from the mountains. As a pedes- 
trian, Bob had had occasion again and 
again to bless the Swiss Government for 
their splendid road-beds, but now, as he 
watched the long white ribbon of the high- 
way rolling out before him and saw how 
close together were the road menders seated 
beside the road working with their little 
piles of stones, he realized for the first time 
the constant watchfulness necessary to bring 
about the superb highways. 

They had been aided for a time by a fair 
wind, but just as they came in sight of 
Lake Leman the wind shifted, and they 
were forced to drive the dirigible straight 


THE COLLERTON ENGINE LANDS 241 

into the very teeth of a good breeze. Jack 
glanced at the small clock set in the frame- 
work of the engine, and saw with relief that it 
was only half-past three. They had made 
the run from Brigue in record-breaking time. 

Suddenly his accustomed ear heard a 
slight but ominous sound from the engine 
before him. With every sense alert, he 
bent forward. The sound continued. Trouble 
was brewing. Hastily he began an examina- 
tion, opening and shutting cocks, trying 
levers and testing valves. Now the engine 
began to miss fire, and a loud explosion 
showed serious trouble ahead. Then, with 
a final burst of sound, it stopped and the 
airship was left to the mercy of the winds. 
Jack gave one rapid glance around to fix 
conditions in his mind before he went to 
work. That glance showed him that his 
time was short. They were out above the 
lake now, whose choppy waters were lashed 
by a breeze that forced the lateen sails of 
the boats to reef closely. 

16 


242 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

Ahead Jack recognized the gray walls 
and turrets of the castle of Chillon. Look- 
ing far down the lake, he saw the steamers 
ploughing their way up and down, and 
then took one glance behind him. There 
in the background towered the huge white 
wall of the snow-covered Dent du Midi, 
flanked on either side by out-thrust, forest- 
covered cliffs, which towered hundreds of 
feet above the level of the lake. The breeze 
was already driving the dirigible straight 
for the cliff on the left. 

With set teeth. Jack started on a regular 
round of inspection of the engine, tested 
every part of his gasoline supply, and set 
and reset the needle valve in the vaporizer. 
Nothing seemed the matter. Every part 
appeared in perfect condition. Jack turned 
his attention to his spark, ran rapidly 
through the possible causes for defective 
sparking, and tested his batteries with the 
pocket volt-meter and ammeter. The bat- 
teries were perfectly good, and showed no 
sign of weakness. 


THE COLLERTON ENGINE LANDS 243 

Swiftly he examined his sparking points. 
They were clean and sound. The ignition 
mechanism was the next proposition. Twice 
over he checked off every part. No defect 
appeared anywhere. 

Jack threw another glance behind him. 
The airship was being driven towards a 
rocky precipice which dropped a sheer hun- 
dred feet. He glanced at his friends. Met- 
telin sat imperturbable at the steering gear. 
Bob lay easily in his place, although both 
understood perfectly that the chances were 
strongly in favor of their being flung against 
the rocky barrier ahead within fifteen min- 
utes. Old Prussian soldier and English 
school-boy were each true to his race. Nor 
was the American a whit behind. On him 
rested the lives of the others, and, with 
a grim determination, he turned again to 
the problem. 

The trouble was in the electrical trans- 
mission. He was sure of that. He had elim- 
inated every other possibility. Coolly as 


244 jack COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

though the framework were on land, he 
started back on the frame towards Bob. 
The batteries and magneto were just behind 
him, and neither would give the spark. The 
cases had been lashed on just behind the 
battery box. 

In desperation as to the cause of the 
trouble. Jack started to climb beneath the 
frame. As he did so, his feet slipped, and 
he was left dangling in mid-air, three hun- 
dred feet above the ground. An involun- 
tary groan burst from Bob’s lips as he 
watched the struggle. But clean living and 
hard training stood Jack in good stead in 
his perilous plight. With a mighty effort, 
he swung back on to the frame and on top of 
the cases. 

There was no time to rest. Swiftly 
Jack’s hands felt over the wires which ran 
below the cases. Carefully he slipped his 
hand along the hidden circuit. There was 
the trouble. In lashing the cases. Bob had 
allowed the corner to come too near the 


THE COLLERTON ENGINE LANDS 245 

wires which led from the batteries to the 
engine. On the way up they had gradually 
loosened and had slipped yet farther for- 
ward. Gradually the insulation had been 
worn oif, and a short circuit was the result. 

Jack looked behind him. The precipice 
was much nearer now. Deftly he separated 
the wires, stuffed some cotton waste between 
them, recaught the cases in their lashings, 
and was back in his seat, acts which took 
less than a minute. Then he bent and 
cranked the engine. No sound ever came 
more sweetly to human ears than the famil- 
iar chug-chug of that gasoline engine came 
to Jack’s. Quicker than thought he threw 
in his clutch, and the big propellers resumed 
their racing speed against the driving gale. 

No skipper jockeying his craft in an 
American Cup race ever handled his boat 
more cleverly than Mettelin, as he took up 
the contest with the wind. During most of 
the struggle the dirigible had been in the 
dead calm which surrounds any airship in 


246 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

the free air, no matter how fierce the gale. 
The voyagers however had gone too far. 
They were under the very wall of the moun- 
tain, and the eddying cross currents raged, 
shaking the airship like a leaf in the grasp 
of the autumn wind. 

Little by little they gained, now a few 
feet, now a hundred feet. Now they were 
driven back, and it seemed as if the cause 
was lost; gradually, by almost impercep- 
tible advances, they drew away, drew far- 
ther yet, and the fight was won. In half an 
hour they were well beyond the cliffs and 
beating down on Territet. Jack looked at 
his watch. It was twenty minutes of five. 

Mettelin had put on full speed now, and 
the airship was responding nobly. At a 
quarter of five they had passed Chillon and 
were running up towards the town, when 
Mettelin slowed down his speed and Jack 
stopped the racing engine. As they crossed 
the wire of the little trolley line that runs 
from Territet to Chillon, and hovered over a 


THE COLLERTON ENGINE LANDS 247 

garden came the welcome order: “Throw out 
the rope!” 

Like an uncoiling whiplash the sinuous 
rope flew through the air, and the airship 
rocked and quivered, as it strained at its 
leashes. Without a word. Jack swarmed 
down the rope and started off, followed by a 
yell from Bob, “Turn to the right. Follow 
the trolley line to the hotel.” 

At his top speed Jack bounded off down 
the middle of the road, till the long line of a 
big hotel came in view. Entering, he dashed 
through an arch and then through a whole 
series of magnificent sun parlors, billiard 
rooms, and lounges. A panting query, “The 
Airship Competition?” and a surprised ser- 
vant pointed ahead. 

As Jack ran on, he heard the big clock 
outside toll the first stroke of five. The 
second stroke found him in view of a room 
where a knot of men were standing near a 
gray-bearded Englishman in white flannels, 
who stood by the mantel. The third stroke 


248 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

brought him inside the room, bursting on 
the dignified assembly like a thunderbolt. 

‘‘I enter the Collerton engine for the 
competition!” he panted breathlessly, as 
the last two strokes solemnly rang forth. 

The crowd parted, and he saw the man in 
the white flannels snap the hunting case of 
his gold watch together approvingly. “A 
very sporting proposition,” he said. “Are 
your engines in Territet.^” 

“Yes, sir,” answered Jack, struggling for 
breath. 

“And you are a British company with a 
British subject as Chairman of the Board of 
Directors?” went on the gray-bearded man. 

“Yes, sir,” answered Jack again. 

“Then I think we can accept the entry 
provisionally, gentlemen, and we shall have 
the pleasure of watching another competitor 
in the trials,” said the other pleasantly. 
“Day after to-morrow we will inspect the 
engines in the tent erected by the lake. I 
should like to have the gentleman who made 


THE COLLERTON ENGINE LANDS 249 

the entry of the Collerton engine fill out the 
necessary blanks.” He paused. ‘‘And now, 
gentlemen, that is all for this afternoon. I 
wish you a very good day.” 

The group broke up. Jack looked eagerly 
around to see if Kunsch, Schwartz, or Er- 
heim were present. He did not really expect 
to see the third, as he felt sure that the man 
from whom he had stolen the cases was en- 
tirely innocent of the plot, and that he was 
honestly convinced that the cases really had 
been stolen from him until the confederates 
had told him to the contrary. In no other 
way could Jack explain the bringing of the 
case against him and the utter dropping of 
it afterwards. 

He saw none of the Mannheim people, 
however, and moved quietly through the 
group of engine builders and aeronauts to 
the secretary’s desk. He noticed as he went 
forward that two or three men were talking 
earnestly to the man in the white flannels, 
and that curious glances were being thrown 
in his direction. 


250 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

Jack, paying no attention to the onlookers, 
went steadily ahead about his immediate 
business of filling out the blanks In the long 
legal printed sheet before him. He was about 
half through, when the gentleman in the 
white flannels broke away from his confer- 
ence and came over towards him. Jack 
rose as he came forward. 

“I am Sir Gregory Hawes, Chief of the 
Aeronautic Division of the War Office,” 
said the gentleman. 

“My name is John Collerton. I am the 
son of Mr. Philip Collerton, the inventor of 
the Collerton engine,” said Jack. 

“Glad to meet you, Mr. Collerton. Now, 
do you mind answering me orally a few ques- 
tions which I could undoubtedly obtain from 
that rather wretchedly lengthy sheet”; he 
pointed to the entry blank. 

“I should be very glad to tell you any 
thing I can. Sir Gregory,” said Jack. 

The room was very quiet now, and all its 
occupants were clustered about Sir Gregory 


THE COLLERTON ENGINE LANDS 251 

Hawes and Jack. The lad felt as if he were 
in the presence of a court of inquiry, but he 
betrayed no sign of agitation. The doings 
of the last weeks had done one thing at least. 
It had given him a command over his nerves 
such as he had never had before. 

‘H do not think I have ever happened to 
hear of your father or of his engine,” began 
Sir Gregory reflectively. ‘H have known 
most of the men interested in aeronautic 
affairs, too. Where has he been working?” 

‘Hn Salem, Massachusetts, United States 
of America,” answered Jack briefly. 

Sir Gregory looked up in surprise. ‘‘But 
I thought you said yours was a British firm, 
with a British subject as Chairman of your 
Board of Directors.” 

“It is,” answered Jack. “We are regis- 
tered as a British firm under the laws of 
Great Britain. Benjamin Twomell, of the 
Inner Temple, is our solicitor. A telegram 
to him will give you any information con- 
cerning our registration or standing.” 


252 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

‘‘Is that Twomell the cricketer?” asked 
Sir Gregory with considerable interest. “I 
know of him, of course.” 

“Yes,” said Jack, “he Is the one. Our 
chairman Is Robert Burne, Esq., of ‘The 
Grange,’ Henley-on-Thames.” 

Sir Gregory’s eyebrows came together 
with a frown. “But Sir Robert Burne,” he 
protested, “has been dead for three years. 
I knew him well.” 

An assenting murmur rose from two or 
three Englishmen present. 

“It is his son, Robert Burne, who Is our 
chairman,” said Jack quietly. 

A look of amazement spread over Sir 
Gregory’s face. “You don’t mean Bob 
Burne, do you, who was at Eton last year?” 

“I do,” said Jack. 

“But he ’s a minor,” said Sir Gregory. 

“He is,” answered Jack. “But minors 
are allowed to serve as chairmen of boards 
of directors under a precedent established 
over fifty years ago and seldom used since. 


THE COLLERTON ENGINE LANDS 253 

Mr. Twomell can give you the exact chapter 
and verse if you wire him. I cannot.” 

‘‘Do you know where Mr. Burne is now.?” 
went on Sir Gregory. 

Jack smiled. “I left him less than half 
an hour ago in Herr Mettelin’s airship, 
which was anchored in a potato patch some 
ten minutes’ walk away.” 

Sir Gregory laughed heartily. 

“My dear Mr. Collerton, I have n’t a 
word more to say. If Bob Burne is swaying 
in the air as near here as that, we must have 
him down to dinner immediately. The 
rascal was my son’s fag at Eton, and I ’ve 
known him well. There is n’t a cleaner, 
finer chap, England through. He ’ll be all 
the sponsor you need. I am delighted to 
hear that Herr Mettelin is here also. I un- 
derstood he was not coming.” 

He turned to the assembly: “Gentlemen, 
I will say good day once more.” And the 
group parted and strolled away. In five 
minutes more, only Sir Gregory, Jack, and 
the secretary were left in the room. 


254 jack COLLERTON’S engine 

The lad had just finished the blank as Sir 
Gregory spoke to him again. 

‘‘Now, Mr. Collerton, if you have finished, 
suppose we see if we can rescue Mr. Burne 
and Herr Mettelin from the potato patch.” 

They started off, and, at a much slower 
gait than that at which Jack had come 
down, retraced the way. In response to Sir 
Gregory’s kindly questioning. Jack briefly 
recounted the main facts of his story, care- 
fully omitting all reference to the difficul- 
ties with the Mannheim Company. That 
part of the story could be told if necessary. 
Otherwise, Jack felt it would be wiser to 
bury it in oblivion. 

As they approached the potato patch, they 
saw Bob and Herr Mettelin in amicable 
conversation with a gardener, whom they 
had apparently succeeded in pacifying for 
the damage done by their sudden descent. 
The airship swayed above them, held safely 
by its grapnels. 

The brief conversation that occurred be- 


THE COLLERTON ENGINE LANDS 255 

fore Sir Gregory returned to his hotel served 
to put the Collerton engine on as good a 
standing as any of its competitors. He was 
scarcely out of earshot when Jack turned to 
the great aeronaut. 

“Herr Mettelin,” he said with deep feel- 
ing, “you can hardly know how much I 
appreciate your coming to my aid in Brigue. 
I never could have reached Territet in time 
had it not been for you.” 

Mettelin smiled. “You more than bal- 
anced any claim of gratitude when you kept 
me off that precipice,” he said. “At any 
rate, all the thanks are due Mr. Burne. The 
moment he received your telegram he saw 
he could not get to you in time in any other 
way, so he very wisely came to me. I was 
only too glad to try the trip.” 

“That only expresses about one tenth of 
it,” said Bob. “The cheerful willingness to 
help in every way is something I shaH never 
forget.” 

“But now, gentlemen,” said Mettelin, 


256 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

eager to change the subject, “it is time for 
us to depart.” And the brief talk ended. 

Sir Gregory had offered a place for the 
dirigible in the balloon tents already erected, 
and Herr Mettelin having accepted it. Jack 
took his position as operator once more, 
and they ran the big dirigible to the shore 
and saw it safely installed. 

Bob and Jack stood before the tent, each 
with a case in hand, as Mettelin came out to 
them. 

“Now, gentlemen,” he said, “there is yet 
an hour and a half before we must meet Sir 
Gregory. Would it not be a wise plan to 
begin setting up your engine.^ I shall be 
very glad to assist.” 

Warm friendships rise in times of danger. 
There were three aviators now bent on the 
success of the Collerton engine; Mettelin had 
thrown the whole of his splendid enthusiasm 
on their side. 

Special, carefully guarded and locked, in- 
dividual quarters had already been assigned 


THE COLLERTON ENGINE LANDS 257 

to the Collerton Engine Company. Jack 
handled each part lovingly, as he unpacked 
the cases and handed the pieces of the engine 
to Bob and to Mettelin. 

Every part in the first case was in perfect 
condition. Jack had gone half-way down the 
second case when he took out one part with a 
gasp of dismay. The set of valves on which 
the most depended, the most unique and in- 
dividual piece of construction in the engine, 
was badly shattered. 

Jack held it up. 

^‘‘Without that I can’t do a thing,” he 
said brokenly. ‘‘And I don’t believe I can 
fix it. I don’t believe anybody but my 
father could, either!” 

Herr Mettelin took the metal from him and 
examined it carefully. Finally he shook his 
his head. “I certainly cannot mend it, and 
I do not believe there is a man here who can.” 

Bob for once looked on in blank despair. 


*7 


CHAPTER ELEVEN 


A SUCCESSFUL COMPETITION ON LAKE LEMAN 

Jack turned the piece of mechanism over 
and over in his hand, while Bob and Met- 
telin watched him closely. Finally he shook 
his head once more. 

‘‘It’s no use,” he said gravely. “Cer- 
tainly I can’t do anything with it to-night. 
The only thing to do is to sleep over it.” 

“One other thing to do,” remarked Herr 
Mettelin, “is to keep absolute silence. A 
reverse, if hidden, is half a success.” 

It was no slight strain for the two boys to 
attend the dinner given by Sir Gregory 
Hawes that night, and to keep a cheerful 
and undisturbed mien, despite the growing 
anxiety that was beneath. But they bore 
the test bravely, and reached their room at 
the hotel without having made evident by 
word or sign that they felt themselves on the 


A SUCCESSFUL COMPETITION 259 

brink of possible discomfiture. They were 
sure of one thing, at any rate. No one could 
get at the engine now to do it further harm 
or to learn of its present helplessness. It 
was safe in the charge of the officials of the 
War Office. 

Jack awoke from a fitful slumber about 
five o’clock the next morning, and heard Bob 
moving quietly in the next room. 

“Hey, Bob!” he called. 

Bob’s tousled head appeared at the con- 
necting door. ‘^Hey, Jack!” he responded. 
“What do you say to gettin’ up and goin’ 
down to have an early look at Chillon before 
we start in on the day’s work. That is,” he 
continued, “unless you ’ve got some idea 
about mendin’ the engine.” 

“Not an idea,” answered Jack. “I ’ll be 
with you as soon as I ’ve had my tub.” The 
cold water soon cleared away the fogs of the 
night, and it was a clear-brained pair who 
startled a drowsy waiter in the big breakfast 
room with a demand for ‘‘Chocolai complete 


26 o jack COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

Through the almost deserted corridors 
they passed, by porters cleaning windows 
and maids dusting furniture, out into the 
clear bright morning. The little town was 
not yet half astir as they strolled slowly up 
the same street down which Jack had raced 
so hurriedly the day before. Here and there 
a woman was scrubbing a door-step, or a 
gardener was clipping a hedge. Below, the 
lake stretched out towards Lausanne and 
Geneva, undisturbed save by the lateen sails 
of two fishing boats running wing and wing 
before a fresh breeze. The fresh white 
beauty of the Dent du Midi, glistening in 
the morning sun, was directly ahead as they 
walked down the slope towards the old castle 
of Chillon. 

Down the winding path to the moat, 
across the drawbridge, past a yawning con- 
cierge, whose frown at the early arrival of 
his visitors changed to a smile at a double fee, 
and into the courtyard of the castle they 
passed. 


A SUCCESSFUL COMPETITION 261 


Unvexed at this early hour by cicerones, 
Bob passed directly to the vaults beneath 
the castle, hewn from the rough rock on 
which Chillon stands, and entered a low 
room supported by seven pillars. Near one 
he paused and pointed to the circling path 
which surrounded it. 

The place was very still, its silence broken 
only by the lapping waves upon the massive 
walls below the open window. Jack looked 
up inquiringly, and Bob said but a single 
word ^‘Bonivard,” and the friends stood rev- 
erently for an instant before the pillar to 
which that great martyr to liberty was 
chained through many weary years. 

But the serious side of life never lasts 
very long at the age of seventeen, and the 
boys were hardly up the stairs and into the 
chamber of that Duchesse de Savoie who 
lived in the thirteenth century before they 
were skylarking through the narrow vaulted 
rooms. 

“Chamber of the Duchess,” said Jack. 


262 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

‘‘Humph, I would n’t want to keep pigs here. 
Even pigs need sunshine and air.” 

They passed into the long hall of the 
Knights and the Chamber of Justice, noting 
the old wooden ceilings and queer mural 
decorations, and then went out into a sunny 
inner courtyard, where they stopped for a 
moment to watch two interesting scenes — 
a pretty girl tending her little flower bed at 
one side, and an antiquated stationary en- 
gine, which, with many a creak of disgusted 
unwillingness, was cutting up the winter’s 
supply of wood for the castle. 

“That ’s a queer-looking engine,” said 
Jack. The first glance was not enough, and 
he bent to examine the construction more 
carefully. At last Jack turned to Bob. 

“I wish you ’d use your French to ask these 
chaps,” he said briefly, “if they know who 
made that engine or where it came from.” 

Bob’s brief request was answered by a 
rapid fire of gesticulating Swiss-French patois. 
It ceased, and Bob translated: “This chap 


A SUCCESSFUL COMPETITION 263 

here owns the engine. He inherited it from 
his uncle, who was a watchmaker in Geneva, 
and who built this engine himself when he 
came back to his old home at Territet to 
pass his declining years. This fellow says it 
always worked fine.” 

‘‘Well, that watchmaker at Geneva made 
a valve there that I want to look into,” said 
Jack, rising. “Ask him if he ’ll let me take 
part of his engine down and set it up again 
for ten francs.” 

Bob obeyed, and the peasant jumped at 
the chance. Fortunately wrench, screw- 
driver, and hammer were at hand, and the 
machine was hardly cool before Jack was 
investigating its construction. After a rapid 
inspection, he rose with knotted brows, 
paced out into the courtyard and back, and 
then put the parts together once more. As 
he finished his work, lie spoke to Bob : 

“I wish you ’d pay this chap and then 
meet me out on the drawbridge.” 

Bob paid the peasant and followed on. 


264 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

He found his colleague sitting on the bridge, 
drawing diagrams on the white fronts of two 
picture postal cards. Jack was so hard at 
work that he did not even look up at the 
approaching step, and did not rouse until 
Bob stood directly before him. Then he 
spoke slowly: 

Ve got an idea at last. I don’t know 
how it will work out yet. Suppose we go 
right back to headquarters.” 

The trip back was a silent one, for Jack 
was utterly oblivious of everything about 
him, and Bob respected his meditations. Nor 
did Jack break his silence for some time 
after they had taken the broken valve from 
the case. He sat turning the part over and 
over again. At last he looked up with a clear 
brow and nodded affirmatively as he met 
Bob’s questioning gaze. 

‘Hf I had a first-class ordinary valve to 
reconstruct into our own valve,” he said at 
last, “and a forge where I could do the 
work, I believe I could fix this. That old 


A SUCCESSFUL COMPETITION 265 

valve that the Geneva watchmaker made 
half a century ago showed me the way out.” 

‘‘I hope that I may be once more of serv- 
ice,” broke in a voice from the doorway of 
the little shed, and the two turned to see 
Herr Mettelin in the doorway. ‘‘ I should be 
very glad, Mr. Collerton,” Mettelin went on, 
‘^to have you avail yourself of any part of 
my engine that you can use, and I know 
where there is a forge.” 

Jack sprang up. ‘‘I am so much obliged!” 
He paused for an instant, and then went on 
decisively: ‘H believe I will take advantage 
of your most generous offer, Herr Mettelin. 
If you don’t mind, I ’m going to look once 
more at your engine, though. I think I can 
make it work, but I want to look up one 
point.” 

Bob remained behind to secure the engine, 
and then followed to Mettelin’s balloon tent. 
He found Jack just rising from his hands and 
knees before the engine, and wiping his hands 
on a bit of cotton waste. ‘‘That will do all 


266 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

right,” he said briefly. ‘‘Now, Herr Mette- 
lin, if you can tell me where I can find the 
forge.” 

“I will go with you myself,” said Mettelin. 
“My operator came up last night from 
Brigue, and I will have him take the whole 
engine from the frame and have it carried 
down. You can have your engine taken 
over at the same time.” 

“This is our biggest procession yet,” re- 
marked Bob as they brought up the rear of 
the group that passed down the hill towards 
the lake front, an hour later. “Let’s see, 
we never had eight people all bent on our 
affairs at once.” 

The advance was rather of the processional 
variety. First came the Mettelin engine, 
borne by two stalwart porters and guarded 
by Mettelin’s operator, then the Collerton 
engine, in its cases, borne by two more 
porters, and then Herr Mettelin, walking 
side by side with Bob and Jack. They pro- 
ceeded a short distance down the lake front. 


A SUCCESSFUL COMPETITION 267 

and then turned into a side street where a 
few wooden shops stood, roughly grouped. 
One, by its wide-mouthed chimney, showed 
its trade. It was the forge. 

The boys peered in curiously. Three 
workmen in heavy sabots, with blackened 
faces and gray, open blouses, were swinging 
a piston rod, suspended by a rude derrick 
overhead, into a flaming furnace door which 
was held by a fourth man who was directing 
the operation. Two more artisans stood 
with huge sledge-hammers beside a big anvil, 
ready to beat the metal into shape. 

At a word the big rod swung forward and 
into the glowing furnace. The boys, fas- 
cinated by the picture, saw the dark of the 
metal turn slowly gold and then change to a 
yellow, glistening white, that cast strange 
reflections on the sooty beams of the old shop. 
There was a quick command, and the incan- 
descent metal, swung out once more, turned 
slowly to the anvil and lay there. Instantly 
the two brawny figures, statuesquely leaning 


268 JACK COLLEKTON’S ENGINE 

upon their massive sledges, sprang to life, 
and the whole room rang with the reverbera- 
tion of their hammers. 

Suddenly the resounding clamor ceased, 
and the men, dropping their sledges to the 
ground, resumed their quiet pose, the swift 
lifting of their broad chests the only sign of 
their exertions. A man whom the boys had 
not seen before sprang forward and peered 
along the bar, nodded, and the three work- 
men, raising the straightened rod in its 
chains, once more swung it into place before 
the furnace. Out swung the door and the 
leaping light vied with the stray sunlight 
from the dark, high windows. Once more 
the piston rod grew gold, once more it swung 
out to drop slowly into a tank of oil, which 
hissed and sputtered as it fell. As the hissing 
ceased, the man by the furnace door gave 
the iron one glance and then came forward 
to meet his visitors. 

The iron worker recognized Mettelin in- 
stantly and was entirely ready to give over 


A SUCCESSFUL COMPETITION 269 

his forge and workshop for the reconstruction 
of the valve. As he turned away to give the 
necessary orders to his workmen, Jack looked 
at his watch. ‘‘Ten o’clock,” he said. “I 
should be through by twelve to-night.” 

As Bob remembered those fourteen hours 
afterward, they all merged into a series of 
confused impressions flitting across the screen 
of his memory as clouds pass over the face of 
the waters on a summer’s day. He could 
recall half a dozen scenes repeated over and 
over again; Jack and Herr Mettelin m bor- 
rowed blouses, bending over bits of white- 
hot metal; workmen beating glowing iron to 
form, under the direction of one or the other; 
the steady rasp of flies scraping and scraping 
against metal; a sound broken sometimes by 
the harsh clang of chisels against cold iron, 
or the duller scrunch of chisels cutting 
through hot iron. 

Bob could see himself running to and fro 
with buckets of water; bringing food for 
hasty meals; noting dully the passage of day 


270 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

into twilight, twilight into night, while the 
never-ceasing work went on; watching the 
valve tested and rejected, until at last he 
saw a piece of framed metal joined to their 
own engine, ‘‘to our own engine,” he thought 
jubilantly; then the whole merged into one 
final picture, that moment of suspense in 
which Jack, opening once more his gasoline 
supply, was putting on his spark and crank- 
ing up, while an anxious, red-eyed group, 
with drawn, blackened faces, surrounded 
him. 

And then how splendidly the Collerton 
engine responded, started off on the neutral 
with every part working smoothly, evenly, 
perfectly! The rest was a memory to Bob 
of a confused stumble back to headquarters, 
bearing the engine, of a somewhat dubious 
sentry who called the officer of the guard 
before he would let them through, of locking 
up the cases safely, and at last of washing up 
and dropping into bed. 

Altogether, it was one of the most chaotic 


A SUCCESSFUL COMPETITION 271 

days through which the Chairman of the 
Collerton Engine Company had ever passed. 

The next morning Jack and Bob, to their 
considerable relief, found that their luggage, 
forwarded by Bob’s command from Lucerne, 
had appeared, and that they were able in 
consequence to change their soiled clothes 
for fresh. The day of the trials was fair and 
cloudless, a slight breeze rippled the waters 
of the lake before their windows, and the air 
was pleasantly but not oppressively warm. 
It was an ideal day for any airship operations. 

Breakfast was soon over, and the boys, 
with Herr Mettelin, reached headquarters 
early. The engine worked as well this morn- 
ing as it had the night before. The same 
dirigible was to be used with all four of the 
competing engines, and each engine was to 
be fastened on the framework in turn, a 
method of procedure which required consid- 
erable time, but tended to insure an equality 
of conditions. 

The order in which the engines were to be 


272 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

tried had been determined by lot. The 
Mannheim Company was first, the Ayre- 
toun second, the Maxwell-Stern third, and 
the Collerton fourth. If anything, the 
drawing favored the Mannheim Company. 
Each company was to provide the aviator 
who was to make the ascent. Jack was to 
make the ascent for the Collerton Company. 

To prevent any possible accident at the 
last minute, it was decided that some one 
should watch the set-up engine every minute 
until the flight, and Bob, having strenuously 
insisted upon that post, was allowed to hold 
it. As a comparative layman, his observation 
of the preceding flights could do Jack but 
little good, while the trained eyes of Herr 
Mettelin might serve the Collerton aeronaut 
well. 

The conditions of each trial were briefly 
these: each operator was to ascend from 
the stage at Territet, run down the north 
bank of Lake Leman, past Lausanne, to a 
stake boat placed off Morges, — approxi- 


A SUCCESSFUL COMPETITION 273 

mately twenty miles. At Merges he was to 
turn south and cross the river to a stake 
boat off Evian, eight miles away on the 
southern bank, then return diagonally across 
the lake and around a stake boat to Terri tet, 
making a total distance of fifty English 
miles. Allowing certain fixed handicaps, 
such as allowance for winds, et cetera^ the 
engine which covered the distance in the 
shortest time without accident was to win. 

As Jack approached the group he recog- 
nized the stout form of Schwartz and the 
lean frame of Kunsch. For an instant he 
held back, not anxious for the meeting; but 
a moment later he remembered that though 
he had seen them, they had never seen him; 
so he pushed on. 

The Mannheim aviator was a slim young 
man whom Jack had never seen. He seemed 
to know his business thoroughly, however, 
and in a very brief space had his engine ad- 
justed and was ready to start. 

Easily and quickly the airship, bearing the 
18 


274 jack COLLERTON’S engine 

Mannheim engine, took to the air, rose a 
hundred feet, and started straight down the 
lake. 

“That ’s a good engine, Herr Mettelin,” 
said Jack, as they watched the dirigible 
sweep away. 

“Excellent,’’ answered the aeronaut, glanc- 
ing at the stop-watch in his hand, “but I 
think the Collerton can do better.” 

Jack watched the little assembly curiously 
as they stood waiting for the returning air- 
ship. Sir Gregory, in his spotless white 
flannels, stood chatting with his two asso- 
ciate judges, while the other competitors and 
their respective following talked among them- 
selves. A number came to speak to Mettelin, 
and Jack found a most courteous welcome, i 

They were talking with an English aero- 
naut who had come over expressly to see 
the trials, when a cry went up: “Here she 
comes!” and Jack raised his glasses, to see 
the big bird making straight for home. 
Easily and gracefully the boat came down 


A SUCCESSFUL COMPETITION 275 

without a slip amidst a most generous round 
of applause. The Mannheim Company had 
done excellently, and Jack felt none too sure 
in his heart of hearts that he could beat them. 
The general opinion of the aeronauts around 
seemed to be that no engine could be pro- 
duced which would do better. 

Neither the engine of the Ayretoun, nor 
that of the Maxwell-Stern Company came 
near to equalling the record made by the 
Mannheims. The first stopped short before 
it had gone a mile, and it was only with 
the greatest difficulty that the airship was 
brought back to the landing stage, while the 
aviator of the second took nearly an hour 
more to round the course than the Mannheim 
aeronaut had required. The whole morning 
had passed, and afternoon was well on before 
the three trials were ended, and the time 
came for the Collerton engine to take its 
chances. 

As Jack sat at his place, with the swaying, 
gas-filled bag above him, waiting for the 


276 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

word to go, he felt a spirit of calm confi- 
dence settle over him. Then came the 
sharp query: “Ready?” 

“Yes.” 

“Go.” 

The lad smiled cheerfully, as from the 
shouts that heralded his rise, two familiar 
voices could be distinguished: “Go it, old 
boy!” “Good fortune, Mr. Collerton!” 
But he never moved his head. His chance, 
the chance of his life, was ahead of him, and 
he was determined to avail himself of it to 
the utmost. 

Ascending slowly at first, he soon passed 
from low speed to high. As he flew on, he 
blessed the two long trips with Mettelin, for 
his observation of the tactics of that master 
of his trade did him good service now. 
Straight up the coast he sped, by smiling 
rivers, vineyard-covered hills and pleasant 
shore resorts, past Lausanne and up to 
Morges, where he made his sharp turn and 
started across the lake. Clearly and sweetly 


A SUCCESSFUL COMPETITION 277 

the engine, and the airship which it con- 
trolled, responded to his slightest touch. 
Well did the cool, fresh breeze serve, and 
Jack knew by the time he had left Evian 
that he must be making record time. 

He kept from looking at his watch, how- 
ever. He was going to make the airship do 
its best, anyway, no matter what the time, 
and he could do no better if he knew. As 
he rounded the stake boat, he could hear 
shouts of applause from below, and it was 
with a confident heart that he headed di- 
rectly for the landing stage at Territet. 
Swifter and swifter grew the motion now, as 
Jack threw in the utmost of his power, and 
the craft responded nobly. The last stretch 
was by far the swiftest of all, and it was but 
an affair of minutes before the landing stage 
was before him. As he came up to it, he 
checked his speed with easy movements and 
alighted. 

The long strain of the struggle had been 
no easy thing to endure. Despite his cool 


278 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

nerve, Jack felt a sudden reaction as he 
stepped to the ground from his place on the 
airship; and it was with a feeling of relief 
beyond anything he had ever known that he 
heard Herr Mettelin’s whispered word: “I 
am sure that you have won,” and felt Bob’s 
joyous grip of the hand. 

The judges were shutting their note-books 
now, and were starting to turn away. Jack 
looked around. None of the Mannheim 
Company were in sight. 

‘‘When are they going to announce the 
winner?” he asked anxiously. 

“To-night at eight o’clock,” replied Herr 
Mettelin. “A statement to that effect was 
made while you were off on your flight. 
They need a couple of hours to figure 
the allowances and make the necessary 
corrections.” 

As^ Jack and Bob passed through the 
office of the hotel, a porter hastened towards 
them with a telegram. Jack, with deep 
emotion, saw that it was a cable message. 


A SUCCESSFUL COMPETITION 279 


Leave for Liverpool Saturday. Meet me 
Twomell’s, London. 


CoLLERTON. 


‘‘Hooray!’’ cried Bob. “I am so glad!” 
Yet despite the news from his father, the 
hours that passed before eight that night 
were among the most trying of Jack’s life. 
Although he knew he had apparently made 
by far the best time, yet he feared some pos- 
sible flaw in his calculations. He could not 
be sure, and the minutes passed on leaden 
wings. It was with a sense of deep relief 
that he saw Herr Mettelin glance at his 
watch at the end of dinner, and heard him 
give the signal for departure. 

As they strolled, Herr Mettelin was deep 
in the never-failing question of the compara- 
tive merits of the various types of airships 
heavier than air, of helicopters or vertical 
screw machines, of ornithopters, which are 
intended to fly like a bird with beating 
wings, and of aeroplanes, but the boys could 
hardly reply coherently. The strain of 


28 o jack COLLERTON^S ENGINE 

waiting was proving hard, especially the 
strain of the last minutes. 

As they entered the big room where Jack 
had made his entry of the engine, they found 
the gathering already assembled, and a bril- 
liant company in evening dress under the 
radiant lights. Sir Gregory Hawes and his 
two associates stood before the mantel, a 
little apart, and the half hundred men who 
were present were grouped near him. Just at 
one side Jack saw Kunsch and Schwartz, who 
stood talking together with no very amiable 
expression upon their scowling faces. 

Sir Gregory looked up as the party of 
three entered the room, and motioned to the 
secretary, who called for silence. In an 
instant every sound within the room ceased. 
Sir Gregory stepped forward. 

“Gentlemen,” he said quietly, “I beg to 
announce that the Collerton Engine Com- 
pany has won the competition.” 

A burst of applause greeted his words, a 
sound which Sir Gregory stilled with a wave 


A SUCCESSFUL COMPETITION 281 

of his hand. He continued: ‘‘Will Mr. 
Robert Burne, Chairman of the Board of 
Directors of the Collerton Engine Company, 
kindly step forward?” 

Like a man in a dream, Bob walked out 
before the assembly and up to Sir Gregory, 
who, with a smile, handed over a sealed 
paper. 

“There Is the formal notification of the 
award,” he said.* “The actual transfer of 
the rights to the Government can be made 
any time during the next two weeks in 
London at the War Office. On the signing 
over of the rights, you will receive a warrant 
for twenty-five thousand pounds.” 

Bob took the paper, bowed, and turned 
away, to meet a congratulating group, who 
pressed forward with outstretched hands; 
but the moment of all came when he clasped 
hands with his friend. 

As the felicitations were crowding on the 
two boys from every side, two figures, one 
lean and one fat, were quietly and unosten- 


282 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

tatiously making their way towards the 
door. As he went forward, Bob had seen the 
horror-stricken opening of Mr. Kunsch’s 
lean jaws, as he recognized his former ac- 
quaintance. Now, catching Jack by the 
arm. Bob, excusing themselves for a moment 
from the throng, moved quietly after and 
stepped before the Mannheim representa- 
tives, as they were half-way down the empty 
corridor. 

Jack,’’ said Bob solemnly, as they stepped 
before the two Germans, “I want you to 
know my old friend, Mr. Kunsch. Mr. 
Kunsch has been most kind to us. If you 
remember, I saw Mr. Kunsch first at Henley, 
where he learned that your cases had been 
stolen, and most philanthropically took it 
upon himself to go to the Continent with 
Mr. Schwartz in search of them. He left 
by the night train for Paris. And you ’ll 
remember we were lucky enough to get some 
fine phonographic records of his conversa- 
tion on the train with Mr. Schwartz. Those 


A SUCCESSFUL COMPETITION 283 

records would be invaluable evidence if we 
wanted to use them. 

^‘His automobile broke down, you know, 
just outside Lucerne, and he was good enough 
to let us get the cases ourselves from Hein- 
rich Erheim; but wishin’ to speak to you 
personally, some of his people devised that 
delightful little surprise of havin’ you ar- 
rested at Brigue. Now the reason I ’m 
tellin’ you all these good deeds of the Mann- 
heim Company is that I feel they ’ve been 
too good to us. They ’ve done all they 
ought to do, and I felt we might tell Mr. 
Kunsch that we recognized it, and we felt 
that they must stop.” 

The two men hardened, as they stood at 
bay. As Bob went on, they had started 
once or twice to interrupt blusteringly, but 
the weight of evidence, the piling of Ossa on 
Pelion, was more than flesh and blood could 
stand. Kunsch stood gnawing his mustache 
nervously, while Schwartz wound his heavy 
watch-chain around his finger till it sank 


284 JACK COLLERTON’S ENGINE 

deeply into the fat flesh. Before either 
could speak, Jack broke in: 

‘‘Yes, you ’re quite right. Bob,” he said. 
“I think you ’ve made it very clear.” 

“I ’m glad you think so,” said Bob. “And 
now, gentlemen, one last word. We have n’t 
brought the law into this at all as yet, but if 
any necessity for calling in its aid should 
arise — ” • He paused significantly. Without 
a word of reply, the Germans pushed by 
and departed, and the Mannheim Company 
troubled the Collerton Engine Company no 
more. 

Two days later, in a quiet room in the 
War Office, Bob straightened up from affix- 
ing a last signature on a formal sheet spread 
out on a big desk. He looked inquiringly at 
Sir Gregory Hawes and then at Mr. Twomell. 
Both nodded. “That ’s all,” said Twomell, 
and Sir Gregory, opening a leather case, 
took out a single crinkly oblong of paper and 
handed it over. It was the warrant for 
twenty-five thousand pounds. Bob turned 
with a smile. 



He looked 
inquiringly at 
Sir Gregory Hawes 


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A SUCCESSFUL COMPETITION 28S 

“This goes to the treasurer,” he said, and 
he handed it to Jack. It was made out to 
the Collerton Engine Company. 

“I sha’n’t keep it long,” said Jack, and 
he stepped to the desk, reversed the warrant, 
and endorsed it: 

Pay to the order of Philip Collerton, 
Collerton Engine Co. 

John Collerton, Treas. 

He turned and handed the paper to his 
father. 

One hot summer day a year later, when 
Jack Collerton was back in the United States, 
a lad, David Morrell by name, appeared at 
the machine shops where Jack was working. 
He came on business concerning a storage bat- 
tery which he had invented and with which 
he had passed through some strange adven- 
tures. The story of those adventures will be 
told in the next book of the “Young Cap- 
tains of Industry” series, — “ Dave Morrell’s 
Battery.” 



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